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BROCKTON'S PERILS, 



WITH 



CRITICISMS AND REPLIES, 



TOGETHER WITH 



A SKETCH AND PICTURE OF THE AUTHOR, 

/ 

Rev. Justin Kent Richardson, 



PASTOR OE 

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 






BROCKTON, MASS. 



:C 18 1890/'/ 

to 



LUDLOW, VT.: 
OFFICE OF THE VERMONT BAPTIST, R. S. WARNER, PRINTER. 

1890. 



-o 




*>v 



OOPYRIQHITBD ZB^T 

J&jv. J. K, Richardson, 



TO THE MEMBERS OF 

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 

WHO, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, HAVE SO LOYALLY 

STOOD BY THEIR PASTOR AND THE TRUTH, IN 

THIS AND EVERY OTHER BATTLE IN 

WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN ENGAGED, 

AND TO 

THE MANY OTHER FRIENDS 

THAT HAVE CHEERED AND HELPED 

US ON BY THEIR KINDLY WORDS AND BY THEIR 

MAINTENANCE OF THE TRUTH, WHEN THAT 

TRUTH WAS OBJECTIONABLE TO MANY, 

THIS RECORD OF ONE FIGHT 

IS APPRECIATIVELY 

DEDICATED. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I. Picture and Sketch of the Author, 1 

II. Explanatory and Introductory: the Story of the 

Sermon, 5 

III. The Sermon on " Brockton's Perils," 8 

IV. The Report of the Enterprise, ■ 19 

V. The Author's Correction, 23 

VI. The Reply of the Enterprise, 24 

VII. The Report of the Gazette, 25 

VIII. Criticisms, Public and Private, 27 

IX. The First Reply: "Brockton not Heaven." 42 

X. Rev. F. A. Warfield's Sermon 55 

XI. Letter to Rev. F. A. Warfield and Interview 59 

XII. Further Criticisms 62 

XIII. Second Reply : "Bigotry, Amusements, Card-playing." 69 

XIV. Sermon by Rev. E. H. Sweet 82 

XV. Position of other Pastors 84 

XVI. Other Criticisms 86 

XVII. Third Reply: "Dancing and Theatre-Going." 89 

XVIII. additional Criticisms Ill 

XIX. Fourth Reply : "Baptist Belief." 114 

XX. The Outcome 131 

XXI. Brockton and the Baptists 131 

XXII. Denominational Statistics 134 



[The following sketch is from the Enterprise of March 8, 
1890. The headlines are those of the paper. The picture 
that we use as our frontispiece followed the headlines and 
introduced the article.] 

The Ex-soldier Pastor, 



A CLERGYMAN WHO STILL SUFFERS FROM 
HIS WOUNDS. 

Sketch of Rev. Mr. Richardson of the First Bap- 
tist Church, who preached that Sermon ox 

" BROCKTON'S PERILS." 



There is no man in Brockton whose name has been on 
so many lips the past three weeks as has that of Rev. J. 
K. Richardson, pastor the First Baptist church. On a 
recent Sunday lie delivered a sermon on "Brockton's 
Perils" that created a decided stir in the community. Its 
effect had not been foreseen by the preacher; in fact he 
considered it, as he said a few days since, one of his ordi- 
nary sermons. 

lie held this belief until the Enterprise came out the 
following day with a lengthy report of his sayings, and 
in the few days succeeding he found himself a much 
talked about man. He had preached a sermon which, as 
reported, had shaken Brockton more than the words of 
any clergyman in years, and although he had since repu- 
diated some of the less important statements he has not 
denied that the spirit of his address was correctly inter- 
preted. [See the " Story of the Sermon,'' p. 5.] 

The Enterprise believes that the public will be inter- 
ested in knowing something about Mr. Richardson, of 
whom the accompanying portrait is a very good likeness. 
Personally he is an agreeable and entertaining man to 
talk with. He is an enthusiast in his chosen work, and 
though he may choose means to reach the grand result 
which seems questionable in their appropriateness to 



2 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

many, his sincerity is not of necessity impeached. That 
he has been a busy man in the years that he has lived is 
best shown by the sketch below, which was prepared 
from information furnished by him. 

His fall name is Justin Kent Richardson, and he is just- 
ly proud of his middle name, for it is one that has been 
handed down in the family for generations. He is the 
son of Rev. Orin and Elizabeth Hobart Kent Richardson, 
and in the middle name of his mother, Mr. Richardson 
again traces ancestry, the Hobarts on his mother's side 
being descendants of one of the first clergymen that 
preached in New England. His father, Rev. Orin Rich- 
ardson, is a Baptist minister well known in Maine, in 
which State his settlements were. 

Pownal, Me., was the place, and Dec. 12. 1843, the date 
of the birth of the subject of this sketch. He was born 
in that town while his parents lived there a short time, 
and he was very soon a resident of Portland, wdiere his 
father was then engaged in business. When he was six 
years of age the f amity moved to Hartford, Oxford comi- 
ty, his father's health having failed. There he was reared 
and attended the schools, until he was old enough to en- 
ter Hebron academy and lit for college. While he was 
very young he decided that he would become a Baptist 
minister, and he says he cannot recollect when he did not 
have that object in view. 

THE OPENING OF THE WAR 

found him a pupil in the Hebron academy, a strong active 
boy of 17 years. The patriotic instinct handed clown to 
him by a long line of ancestors was strong in him at this 
time, but he was restrained from entering the service of 
his country until August, 1862, when 18 years old, when 
he enlisted as a private in Co. C, 23d Maine, w^as made 
sergeant almost immediately, and promoted to sergeant- 
major while the regiment was at Edward's Ferry for be- 
ing the best drill officer in the regiment. Co. C. was a 
nine-months regiment, but it served ten months, doing 
picket duty up and down the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal 
between Washington and Harper's Ferry, and was sent 
home in 1863, just missing being participants in the battle 
of Gettysburg. 

On arriving at Turner, Me., where his father was now 
settled, he immediately took hold with others and raised 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. O 

a company, of which he was appointed 2d lieutenant and 
commissioned 1st lieutenant. This was Co. G. 30th 
Maine, which went South and joined in Banks' Eed Riv- 
er expedition. They went down in February, and in the 
following April Mr. Richardson fought his last battle. 
The battle is known as Cane River crossing- or Monett's 
bluff. Two hours before the battle he was given the cap- 
taincy of Co. E, 30th Maine, and he entered the tight in 
command of that company, and was put on the extreme 
right. By a blunder the order came to charge before it 
should have been given, and although he saw the mistake 
yet he obeyed, leading the charge in person. As he 
shouted the order he felt a pain in his left arm and knew 
that he was wounded, but without a word he pressed for- 
ward at the head of his men across a field. He was the 
only officer in sight, and was probably made a target of. 
A few minutes later a minnie ball struck him on the front 
of the right leg. just below the knee, and his course was 
checked and he was numbered among the wounded. He 
laid in the hospital in Baton Rouge and Xew Orleans for 
two months, and then he was sent home. The wound in 
the leg has proved a serious one. For six years it was an 
open wound, and then the bullet was chiselled out in 
more than sixty pieces, It remained open for a year 
longer. It troubles him to this day, and he has expected 
twice that his Teg would 

HAVE TO BE AMPUTATED. 

He reached home in Turner in June, and in the next 
August, being able to get about on crutches, he reported 
for duty, asking to be assigned to office duty until he 
should be able to go to the front. He was then examined 
and given an honorable discharge. This was in 1864 3 and 
that winter he preached at North Turner Bridge, where 
his first sermon was delivered the Sunday after he was 
21 years of age. 

In March he returned to Hebron Academy and com- 
pleted the course, preaching every Sunday in the academy 
church. In the summer he entered Colby University at 
Waterville, Me., graduating in the class of '69. A course 
at the Newton Theological^Institution followed, and he 
graduated from there in 1872. The same summer he was 
ordained as pastor of the Baptist church in Maplewood, 
Maiden. Mass., which church had been organized by his 
efforts a year and a half previously. 



4 brockton's perils. 

He left there in May. 1S75, to become pastor of the 
First Baptist church of Rutland, Vt., where he remained 
eight years. In that time he baptized into the church 
about 200 members and more than doubled its member- 
ship. In May, 1883, he accepted a call to the Central 
Square church, Easton Boston, where he was settled for 
three and a half years, when he accepted the call of the 
First Baptist church of this city, of which he has been 
pastor for three years. 

He was married the same summer that he was ordained 
to Artemisia E. Carver of Searsport, Me., and they have 
four children, the oldest being a boy of nearly 16 years. 

Mr. Richardson was twice brevetited for distinguished 
gallantry on the field, once at Pleasant Hill and then at 
Monett's bluff. 

He has taught school 10 terms during his busy life, 
commencing when he was 16, and is editor and proprietor 
of the Vermont Baptist, a monthly which he established 
while settled in Rutland. 

The ±l Rowing items of interest are perhaps worth 
adding : 

The great-grand-father, Benjamin Allen Richardson, 
was in the navy during the war of the Revolution and 
was struck by a partially spent cannon ball that tore out 
about some two or three pounds of flesh from his thigh. 
At first it was thought useless to attempt to do anything 
for him, but the surgeon, having taken care of others, 
turned to him with, " Boy, you are such good pluck we 
will see what we can do for you ! " The wound was dressed 
and he lived to raise up a large family of children. He 
finally died of the wound. 

The father and mother, in a green and vigorous old age, 
are living in Rutland, Vt. The only living brother, George 
Edward Richardson, a dealer in real estate, resides in the 
same place. The other brother was drowned many years 
ago in Buenos Ay res, S. A., and the body was never 
recovered. 



BROCKTON 5 PERILS 



II. 



EXPLANATORY AND INTRODUCTORY : THE 
STORY OF THE SERMON. 



It is a peculiar story. At the opening' of the new year 
and the inauguration of our special meetings, we found 
ourselves in the midst of the "La Grippe" epidemic. 
Hardly a family escaped. It was the one chief topic of 
conversation . Many were kept from the meetings. Those 
Avho were present seemed to have a special spirit of prayer 
for Brockton. The pastor and others were led to pray, 
as never before. " O Lord, stir Brockton as it has never 
yet been stirred. Make this people to talk abont the things 
of thy kingdom as they are now talking about the Grip!" 
The prayer was answered in a way of which no one at the 
time dreamed. At the close of three weeks it was thought 
best to still go on with the nightly meetings, and it was 
suddenly decided, on Friday night, to get Dr. Fulton in 
evangelistic work for at least a week if we could. At the 
time, it was not known when he was to close his Boston 
work. It proved that he was to close on the following 
Sunday night, and that he was just on the point of mak- 
ing an engagement to go to Toronto the following week. 
He was secured for four days, commencing on Monday. 
He staid two weeks, preaching with great power and ac- 
ceptance. While this work was. according to the plan, 
evangelistic. Dr. Fulton was left at liberty to speak on the 
question of Romanism, as he might see lit. Two or three 
sermons were on that theme, while he had more or less to 
say about it in the most of his other discourses. These 
sermons aroused considerable discussion, but their chief 
effect appeared in the reaching of some who were opposed 
both to Romanism and the gospel. 

When Dr. Fulton left, the p>astor went on with the 
preaching services every evening in the main audience 
room of the church. The following Sunday evening he 
delivered the sermon that has so mightily moved the city, 
and furnished the occasion and material for this publica- 



b BROCKTON S PERILS. 

tion. This sermon was not intended to be specially sen- 
sational. It was fully as much a talk as a sermon. It 
was delivered in a quiet, conversational tone of voice and 
in an entirely unimpassioned manner, at least so far as the 
discussion of the perils was concerned. 

The reports of the sermon in the papers of the next day 
were the occasion of no small stir. This was due, doubt- 
less, largely to the sensational report given by " The En- 
terprise," WHICH ENTIRELY MISREPRESENTED THE SPIRIT 
AND MANNER, OF THE DISCOURSE, AS WELL AS SOME OF ITS 

important statements, making it much more vulnerable 
to attack, as well as calculated to arouse a greatly in- 
creased antagonism. For weeks following, the substance 
of this sermon, with the criticism* and replies, was the 
one chief topic of conversation in Brockton. The title 
w^as even taken up as a catch phrase to advertise by. It 
has not yet ceased to be a frequent theme of discussion. 

The Boston and New York papers took up the discus- 
sion and added to the excitement by their reports. Some 
of these reports were gross exaggerations and misrepre- 
sentations. By Wednesday of the week following the 
delivery of that first sermon, the author believed himself 
called upon to make reply, and he announced that he 
would do so on the following Sunday. This reply grew, 
unexpectedly to him, into the several discourses" here 
published. 

As to the result of this discussion, the author is told by 
different persons that a marked change has taken place in 
some of the shops, and that a very decided improvement 
in the conduct of some individuals can be noted. Some 
persons have come out boldly and confessed that they 
have been wrong, and have announced their determina- 
tion to act differently henceforth. It is believed by those 
who are in the best position to know, that more good has 
already been accomplished than often falls to the lot of a 
single sermon, and the good work still goes on. 

When the battle was over, there seemed to be a demand 
for a printed record of the whole matter, especially of the 
iive sermons. It is in response to this call, and in the 
hope that further good may be accomplished thereby, that 
this little book is sent forth. 

The author recognizes the difficulty, the impossibility, 
of making the printed page produce the same effect as the 
spoken word. Especially in discourses of this kind, the 



BROCKTON S TEIULS. / 

tones, the gestures, the life, are needed for their correct 
interpretation. It is easy to misconceive the real effect on 
the audience of some of these passages as they were 
uttered. It is an interesting fact that no one who has 
heard these discourses has seemed disposed to criticise 
them adversely, and that adverse critics who have heard 
the following discourses have been disarmed. The author 
can hardly hope that all who read will be as favorably 
disposed toward him and his words, as were the crowds 
who listened to him when they were delivered, but he 
does cherish the hope that to many, even in this form, 
these words may prove not altogether unacceptable or 
without usefulness. 



BROCKTON S PERILS. 
III. 

BROCKTON'S PERILS. 



The proud have hid a snare for me, and corrls; they have spread a net 
by the wayside : they have set gins for me. — Psalm cxl. 5. 

As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as birds that are caught 
in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it fallelh 
suddenly upon them.— Ecc. ix. 12. 

Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.— Prov. i. 17. 

Perad venture God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of 
the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, 
having been taken captive bv the Lord's servant unto the will of God. 
(Revised version). — 2 Tim. ii. 20. 

[Note. — This sermon was delivered from a full brief, 
i.e., the entire scheme of the sermon was before me, with 
all illustrations and amplifications carefully indicated. 
This brief was closely followed. It is here reproduced as 
nearly as possible just as it was originally delivered.] 

These various passages suggest certain great truths : 

1. That there are snares and gins and nets and cords 
prepared for all, and prepared often by the proud. 

2. That men are liable to fall suddenly. 

3. That one ought not to be overcome by open tempta- 
tion . 

4. That there is a possibility of recovery even to those 
who have been taken captive by the evil one. 

I propose to-night to bring these truths home very prac- 
tically to ourselves and to consider, under the head of 

biiockton's perils, 

the snares and gins and nets and cords prepared for 
men and women here, by which they are liable to be over- 
thrown; but, by which, when seen, they ought not to be 
deceived. At the same time I wish to open the door of 
hope to those who have fallen. But mark you, opening 
a door of hope to the fallen is a very different thing from 
encouraging one to fall. It is an awful risk for one to 
peril his or her salvation in the hope that a forbearing and 
gracious God may, in his infinite mercy, pardon and save 



BROCKTON S PERILS. \) 

the ruined soul. For one who takes that attitude, the 
bible has nothing but the most terrible foreboding. But 
for one who has been deceived and who has a desire to 
return to a better life, there is ever hope. The wilful 
trangressor. who deliberately trespasses on the long suf- 
fering and forbearance and goodness of God. may cut him- 
self off from the possibility of repentance, like Esau find- 
ing no place therefor though searching for it carefully 
with tears ; but yet the parable of the prodigal son is for- 
ever true. 

Before entering directly on my subject let me say. lest 
I be misunderstood, that I do not desire in any way to 
mar the fair fame of the city of Brockton. It is one of 
the best of cities. It is a city that is dear to me. I share 
with others the honest pride her citizens take in her. If 
some things, the things of which I am to speak to-night, 
could be done away it would be for me one of the most 
attractive of all cities. Let us each do what we can to 
make it the best of all. 

WHAT ARE SOME OF BROCKTON'S PERILS? 

I think I may not name all, I may not name those that 
others might select, but of those that to me seem to need 
special consideration and watchfulness. I name six. 

1. The spirit of money-getting merely for the sake of 
money. 

Pre-eminently this is a money-getting city. Men and 
women come here to make money. The city is famous 
for its enterprise. Enterprise we all admire. We are 
proud of this spirit of enterprise on the part of our peo- 
ple. There is much in it to be commended. It is right to 
make money in right ways and for right- purposes. The 
scriptures tell us that he that provides not for his own is 
worse than an infidel. Parents are bidden to lay up for 
the children. The idle are told to labor working with their 
hands, that they may have to give to him that needeth. 
He that will not work is forbidden to eat. The spirit of 
Christianity is the spirit of enterprise. But when men and 
women come to think that money is the measure of its 
possessor : that if they can only have money they have all 
they need, then there is surely danger. 

Sitting the other day in the presence of one of the busi- 
ness men of this city, he suddenly broke out with. " there 



10 brockton's perils. 

is just one thing that I want, one thing that would make 
me perfectly happy !" " what is that?" I said. " Money/' 
was the laconic answer. 

Recently a nicely dressed woman, who looked as if she 
might have a fair share of this world's good, called on Dr. 
Fulton and myself. She told us her story, how miserable 
she was. She thought it was mainly because she had not 
as much money as she wanted to spend. If she only had 
money, it was all she wanted. But money will not give 
happiness. The wealthiest man in Brockton is most un- 
happy. Money cannot give happiness ! It may but make 
one all the more unhappy. Money is a good thing to 
have, provided we make it our servant. It is an awful 
thing to have it our master. The love of money is still 
the root of all evil. 

In a city like this, there is great danger that we shall 
get to having an altogether false estimate of money. Dan- 
ger that we shall get to loving money, to wanting it merely 
for its own sake. We catch the spirit of the atmosphere 
by which we are surrounded. If I go into Boston on the 
train, I find, that however much time I have, I involun- 
tarily catch the spirit of those who are eager to be off the 
train before it is fairly at a stand-still. The very spirit of 
enterprise so prominent here, tends to strongly arouse the 
love of money, and to carry the man away from his true 
relation thereto. This I conceive to be the firs' peril to 
which a man or woman is here subjected. I doubt if any 
person* can live in this city and not be subjected to tempt- 
ation in this direction. Every one of us feels the power 
of this temptation. Every one of us needs to be on our 
guard against this peril. Many will be ruined by it, losing 
their souls in their eager search for this world's gain. 

2. Factory life. 

This is pre-eminently a factory city. It has grown up 
around factories that are scattered everywhere. Its whole 
life and marvellous progress are intimately interwoven ' 
with the factories. They are its life. 

There are many most excellent things about a factory 
city. Especially in a city like this, you have a class of men 
and women that make the very best possible material for 
church growth and progress. Some of the noblest Chris- 
tian workers I have ever known are to be found in these 
factories. There are here men and women not a few that 



Brockton's perils. 11 

are worthy to be enrolled in the category of the saints. 
I am glad to be a pastor in such a city, and to have such 
men and women to work with and for. And yet it remains 
true that there are dangers in a factory life. Among 
the dangers arising from this source I name, (1) the fact 
that in such a city you have a commingling of all classes, 
the bad as well as the good. As into the fisherman's net 
went all kinds of fish, good and bad, so into these facto- 
ries go all sorts of men and women. The vile are there as 
well as the other kind. And. (2) the bad often either out- 
number or else overawe the good, so that it comes to pass 
oftentimes that the atmosphere of the shop is created 
rather by the evil than the good. Wicked men are apt to 
be much more outspoken than good men. A man will 
talk his profanity and vulgarity where another would 
hardly think of talking his religion. I am sorry to say, 
that iii this city of Brockton, of which we are all so proud, 
I have heard more profanity on the streets than I ever 
heard in any other city in my dife. I do not think that I 
hear it as much as I did, possibly because I am better 
known, but even now I hear it far too often. Especially 
at night I am shocked oftened by the blasphemy I hear. 
Of all sins, profanity seems to me the meanest and* the most 
without excuse. For almost any other sin I can tind some 
plausible motive, but I find it very difficult to discover 
any motive for profanity, except it be the utter depravity 
of the heart from which it comes. 

Worse than profanity is vulgarity. I am told that in 
some of our shops vulgarity is by no means uncommon, 
and that not even the presence of women is sufficient to 
restrain such language. In one shop in particular, where 
there are young girls that appear modest and lady-like, I 
am told that they ai e compelled to hear not only profanity 
but vulgarity, as a common thing. The man who wiil 
smoke in the presence of ladies seems to me low down in 
the scale of courtesy ; the man who will use profane lan- 
guage before them is beneath contempt ■; but for the man 
who will indulge in vulgarity in their presence I have no 
words by which I care to characterize him. 

3. Lack of Home Life an Influence. 

Think of what happens to many young men and women 
when they come to the city. They have been accustomed 
to all the comforts and friendships and companionships 



V2 brockton's perils. 

of Lome. Tliey come here and hire a little room in 
somebody's attic, it may be, and will propably take their 
meals in another house. In the house in which they room 
very likely nobody knows or cares for them, save that 
the rent is paid promptly. The work of the day is over, 
the supper is eaten, and then what? Will this child of the 
home be content to sit down in this little barren sleeping 
room all alone? There is nobody who has my sympathy 
more than one of these poor homesick bodies. 'Why should 
they not be homesick and heart sick? Of course if one is 
studious, he can plunge into some book and lose himself 
and possibly get to feel quite at home. If he is religious, 
he can soon become acquainted in some one of the reli- 
gious societies and find helpful friends and those who 
would be glad to see him at their own fireside. But for 
those who are neither studious nor religious, this lack of 
home life and influence opens the way to mighty tempta- 
tions. Among these I name, (1) undesirable literature. 
Many who are not at all studious will yet read something. 
What do they read? The temptation is to read that which 
is harmful, rather than that which is helpful. Inquire as 
to the character of much of the reading in this city and 
see if it is of the helpful kind. Go to our news stands on 
Saturday afternoon and see what class of literature is 
purchased for Sunday reading. Look at the Sunday 
papers upon which many depend as an essential part of 
Sunday occupation. I never buy a Sunday paper, but 
recently there came to me during the week a copy of each 
of two different Sunday papers. I had the curiosity to 
examine them with unusual care to see what kind of mat- 
ter was furnished, especially as I had heard it claimed 
that these papers supplied a large amount of choice, Sun- 
day, religious reading. To my surprise, in these great 
thirty-two page papers, I was unable to find a single par- 
agraph that could by any stretch of courtesy be "termed 
religious. It was made up of pretty much all sorts of mat- 
tre, except that which I should deem suitable for Sunday 
reading. Yet this is what many of these people feed upon, 
and that food is supplimented not by the mental, moral, 
intellectual and spiritual uplift of our religious services, 
but often by literature still more unfit for reading. 

But this lack of home life and influence leads, (2) to 
the making of undesirable friends. Man is a social being. 
He will not long be alone, hi his loneliness he is tempted 



Brockton's perils. 13 

to make friends at once of any who are willing to be 
friends. Unfortunately the most undesirable persons are 
just the ones, as a rule, that it is easiest to become ac- 
quainted with. The lonesome young man or woman is in 
great danger of forming associations that will prevent the 
making of more desirable friendships, for it is held for a 
maxim that ,; a man is known by the company he keeps." 
Just here I am constrained to say a word about societies. 
I wish to speak with all due discrimination, but it seems 
to me that there are here not a few societies standing 
ready to welcome the new comer, that are more likely to 
drag down than to lift up. Of course there is a difference 
in societies, but are not many of these without any suffi- 
cient safeguards in character? Must they not. by the very 
conditions of their existence, be unable to protect them- 
selves from those whom it is very undesirable to be asso- 
ciated with? Do not such societies constitute a peril in 
many cases? Many of them seem to make a business of 
dancing. I want to say a few words, in passing, about 

DANCING. 

The other day I was stopped on the street by one of our 
policemen who wanted me to buy a ticket to the police- 
man's ball. I told him I could not do that. He wanted 
to know why. I told him that anybody could gx> to that 
ball who bought a ticket, and that a young girl going 
there and participating in the dancing was very likely to 
be thrown under the influence, if not into the power, of 
bad men. He did not attempt to deny this. I further 
explained to him that, in my judgment, dancing was mor- 
ally wrong and I could not countenance or encourage it 
in any way. Think of the dances that are so often adver- 
tised: ••Dance to-night, tickets 25 cents." AVho believes 
that it is a safe place for the homesick young man or wo- 
man. Think of what dancing is anyway. Men and women 
in the dance give and take liberties which would elsewhere 
be resented as an insult. The same thing done to your 
wife in your home or in the street and you would feel like 
kicking the man out of your house. Why is it any the 
better because it is done in the dance? 

Is it not true that the theatre is the devil's church, the 
dance is his society and the cards his bible? 

4. The Drink Evil. 

Fortunately in this city of Brockton this evil is under 
most remarkable control*. I have lived in two prohibition 



14 BROCKTON'S PERILS, 

states, but I have never seen the law so thoroughly en- 
forced as it has been here for something' over two years. 
And yet the evil is here This very past week the papers 
tell us that a man drank himself to death in one of our 
hotels.* I am told, on what I believe to be good authority, 
that even in this city there are children that are some- 
times too drunk to go to school. The liquor is given them 
in their own home, and when they are not at school some 
plausible excuse is made to the teacher. ]STo man need 
think that the temptation to drink is not here. It is, and 
every man and women is liable to be exposed to tempta- 
tion in this direction. * 

There are three mighty and most dangerous passions 
that are specially liable to be aroused in the human breast. 
Drink is one of them. No man is safe who once allows 
this passion to be aroused in himself. The only safety is 
in total abstinence and eternal vigilance. 

5. Gambling 
is another passion that it is specially dangerous to arouse. 
Many realize the danger from arousing the drink passion, 
who do not realize the danger from the gambling passion, 
and yet the latter may be even greater than the former. 
In what way is the gambling passion liable to be aroused? 
In what way is it in danger of proving a peril to men and 
women here? Let me mention two ways in particular: 

LOTTERIES AND CARDS. 

I do not know just how much indulgence in lotteries 
there may be here in Brockton, but I have no doubt that 
the real facts would be surprising to most. A few clays 
ago I saw a report of the results of a limited investigation 
in the city of Boston that was very surprising in its rev- 
elation of the extent to which lottery tickets were pur- 
chased. I presume that a similar investigation would re- 
veal a kindred state of things in Brockton. However this 
may be, one thing is certain, viz.: that no man can any 
more afford to indulge in lotteries than he can in strong 
drink, even though the lotteries be furnished in the name 
of philanthropy or Christianity. But I presume that the 
most general form of temptation in this line is to be found 

*Since this sermon was delivered, a business man of tins city attended 
a great supper furnished for a society of which he was a member. It is 
said that champagne flowed freely and this man went home drunk and, 
as a result, died or killed himself. 



brockton ? s perils. 15 

hi card-playing. For some reason card-playing seems to 
have a special aptness to arouse the (/ambling passion in 
the breasts of many. When I entered the army, I would 
not play cards myself, but I had no special objection to 
others playing- if they so desired. Most of the men with 
me did so. Many of them were boys from most excellent 
homes, boys that I had known and enlisted in the service, 
boys that did not intend to gamble. They were playing- 
cards merely to pass away the time, merely as a pleasant 
amusement. Time went on until just after a long' delayed 
pay-davit was found that many of the boys had lost their 
money. Investigation followed and it was learned that 
every one of these boys who had learned to play cards had 
in some way fallen into gambling', and the most of them 
had lost their money. 

But some one will say, ••' if they had only been taught 
to play at home and been shown the wrong of gambling, 
they would not have thus fallen." But I am of the opin- 
ion that this was true of quite a number of these men. 
At any rate I am personally knowing of cases that illus- 
trate the falsity of that argument. I know a family that 
was thus trained. The time came that one son was the 
clerk of the church of which an intimate friend of mine 
was the pastor. Finally it was discovered that he was a 
gambler. Investigation showed that he had long been a 
gambler, and he attributed it to the fact that he learned 
to play cards at home and the gambling passion was 
aroused in him so that, when the opportunity came, he fell 
an easy victim. It was also found that the rest of the 
children of that family were also gamblers. And yet this 
was one of the families that held it as a cardinal principle 
that the true way to train children was to play cards with 
them at home and teach them their proper use. Like the 
man who trains his child to the moderate use of wine, he 
may awaken a passion that he cannot subdue. I know 
another family where I talked with the mother who urged 
these notions on me, while I, at the very time, was aware 
that one of her sons was a confirmed gambler, meeting 
others like himself for gambling purposes in one of the 
worst dens in that place. But, as I have said, many fail 
to realize the danger that there is in arousing this passion.* 
They do not realize that it is seemingly capable of becom- 
ing an even more overpowing passion than that of drink. 
I happen to know one man in this city that is such a vie- 



16 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

tim. He will not do anything but gamble, so long as he 
has anything to gamble with. From his passion there 
seems to be no sobering off. His case is seemingly more 
hopeless than that of a confirmed drunkard. Let the 
gambling passion be once fully aroused and the man seems 
almost hopelessly doomed. 

Card-playing and gambling are here. Men go back and 
forth every day between here and Boston and play cards 
and gamble on the cars. It is in the shops. It is in the 
homes. It is in these rented rooms. This temptation is 
spread out like a net in the sight of all. Let the wise 
beware. 

G. The remaining peril, as it is also the other passion 
which it is so dangerous to arouse, is licentious. 

It is a question if this sin does not prevent the salvation 
of more souls than any other. Many talk as though the 
drink evil was the most destructive of all evils, but I am 
inclined to believe that licentiousness is a still more de- 
structive vice. There are two difficulties about dealing 
with it : (1) it is largely secret, and (2) it is one about which 
we hesitate to speak, although the word of God speaks 
out plainly about this as about other vices. The Bible 
talks about these sins of the flesh as peculiarly destructive, 
declaring that they who are guilty " shall not inherit the 
kingdom of heaven." I would that every young man 
read often such passages as chapters ii., v. and vii. of the 
book of Proverbs and Galations v., Ephesiaus iv., Colos- 
sians iii. But our greatest difficulty in dealing with this 
sin is that it is so secret. One is obliged to depend on 
indications, on straws. What are the indications here? 
Let me note some of these straws : 

One straw is the vulgarity to which I have already 
alluded. " Out of the heart the mouth speaks." Those 
who use such language are surely not clean. 

Another straw is to be found in the fact that so many 
young women have been ruined in this city. 

Still another straw is found in the way some young men 
boast of these things. A man is terribly fallen when he 
boasts of his evil doings and that practically publically. 
Yet when Dr. Fulton was here he told me that walking 
along the streets one day he could not help overhearing 
some young men boasting to each other of how they had 
accomplished the ruin of some of the girls. I am credibly 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 17 

informed thaifmen'will attempt" to'tell those who utterly 
detest such iniquity of their evil doings, as though they 
thought it was something smart. I am also credibly in- 
formed that some of these young men are in the habit of 
meeting together and boasting to each other of what they 
have done in this way. It is a scandalous condition of 
things that can encourage such wickedness. 

Another straw is to be found in the fact that a well 
dressed and seemingly lady-like woman recently applied 
for the rent of rooms, declaring boldly that she must have 
them with the privilege of receiving men to stop as long 
as they pleased, even if it was all night. 

Another straw is to be found in the fact that we have 
in this city at least one physician who sometimes gives 
advice that directly leads to this evil, and lie is the family 
Physician of some of you who sit here.* 

Another straw is to be found in some of the recent 
awful deaths among us. Men have rotted down in the 
presence of their loved ones and died as the fool dieth 
when they ought to have lived on in health and strength 
for many years.f 

Another straw is to be found in the popularity of the 
feeders of licentiousness, the dance hall and 

THE THEATRE. 

The theatre is popular as it descends into the depths. An 
old manager told me that having tried to carry the better 
class of plays he always found it necessary to resort to the 
worse class, in order to save himself from bankruptcy. 
Macready, the actor, practically confessed the immorality 
of the theatre when he declared that he would not take 
his wife and children there unless he knew exactly what 
was to be put on the boards. The standard of honor in 
the theatre is not the standard of Christianity, it is some- 
thing very unlike it. Dr. Herrick Johnson quotes M. 
Bequerel, director of the city prison in Paris, as saying 
that he can always tell when a new play of vicious char- 
acter is put on the boards by the increase of young meu 
who come into his custody. 

*I have since become possessed of credible evidence that virtue has 
been betrayed in the privacy of the physician's office, and that even wives 
are not safe under such circumstances. 

fSeveral such cases have recently been brought to mv notice with what 
I deem sufficient evidence. In one case at least the evidence is incontro- 
vertible. 
3 



18 brockton ? s perils. 

One other straw is found in the advertisements of these 
theatres that are flaunted in our faces and are scattered 
through our city. Look, for example, at that sheet that 
was scattered, I am told, through all the shops on Friday 
last. It was well worthy of suppression as an indecent 
publication. 

I am aware that I am speaking* plainly. I believe that 
you want me to speak plainly. I thank God that I am the 
pastor of a church that believes in plain speaking. I 
should probably speak out just the same under any cir- 
cumstances, but it is worth much to me to know that there 
is at least one church in the city that stands on such high 
ground on all these matters that its pastor can be sure 
that his church will stand with him in all such speaking. 
I am glad to be the pastor of such a church. Every church, 
at least every so-called church, would not be found stand- 
ing by such truth. But, last of all, the practical question 
arises, 

WHAT SHALL BE DONE ? 

The servants of the Lord must speak out boldly against 
these evils. We have been silent all too long. The let- 
alone policy will not do in the presence of such evils. 
Men must have their eyes opened to the evils of these 
things. God must give them repentance. All must be 
put upon their guard and taught that the one safety from 
all perils is Jesus Christ. " This is the victory that over- 
cometh the world — our faith." Let us take Jesus with 
us wherever we go, make him our constant companion 
and friend, and we shall personally be safe from these 
perils, and shall also thereby be enabled to do the most 
that in us lies to cause them to disappear from this our 
beloved city and from the world that belongs to Jesus 
Christ our Saviour and Lord. 



After the sermon, there was, as was customary at that 
time, a second meeting. The members spoke one after 
another in rapid succession, all most heartily endorsing 
what had been said. And throughout the entire discus- 
sions that followed, all the members stood right loyally 
by the pastor. 



brockton's perils. 19 



IV. 



THE EEPOKT OF THE ENTERPRISE. 
(Monday, Feb. 17.) 

The following is the verbatim report of the Enterprise, 
headlines and all : 

A SCATHING SERMON. 

Rev. Mr. Richardsox ox " Brockton's Perils." — Evils 

of Factory Life. Societies, Dancing axd the 

Theatre.— But its chief axd worst 

peril is Licentiousness. 

Pastor Richardson, at whose church a spirited religious 
revival is in progress, stood up in his pulpit yesterday and 
with an unsparing hand stripped Brockton's shoulders 
bare and lashed her with scathing denunciations of her 
faults and failings as he sees them. He laid on the whip 
with utter disregard of how deep it cut. and Brockton 
will quiver with pain or indignation, as the case may be, 
under the stings his lash has left. It was a sermon that 
will create a sensation, and its statements will meet with 
both commendation and condemnation. 



At the close of the regular evening exercises Sunday at 
the First Baptist church. Rev. J. K. Richardson spoke 
very vigorously and at some length on " Brockton's Perils, 
or the Dangers which Here Beset Men and Women." He 
had a large and appreciative congregation, who gave many 
amen responses at the close. He took several fitting texts 
from the Bible for his theme, and the tenor of his remarks 
was as follows : 

Although it is desirable not to mar the fair name of our 
city, yet there are many things to be considered which, in 
the line of duty, could not be left out. One of the perils 
of Brockton is money getting simply for the purpose of 
gain. Brockton, being a city of enterprise, is remarkable 
in this respect, as the spirit of enterprise creates a certain 
atmosphere the substance of which is gain. Many people 



20 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

are accustomed to think and say that money is all that is 
necessary, but such is not a fact. The richest man in 
Brockton is probably her most unhappy citizen, although 
it is remarkable that it is so. Money is not all, and peo- 
ple should not think that it is. Undoubtedly every man 
feels this atmosphere of money getting, but does not feel 
the danger of it. Money is a good thing and God's work 
could not be carried on without it, but the love of it f or 
the mere purpose of gain is the root of all evil. 

Another peril of this city of ours is factory life. Brock- 
ton is pre-eminently a factory city, which is of course a 
good thing and yet constitutes an evil. Many of the men 
and women employed in our factories are some of God's 
noblest creatures and deserve to be on the calendar of 
saints ; but in factories there are all kinds of people, and 
the bad among them often either outnumber or overawe 
the good. The wicked have it all their own way, and 
swing the life of the factory in a very detrimental manner. 

Too much profanity can be heard in the streets of 
Brockton. Swearing is the meanest of all sins. Gener- 
ally there is some excuse for other sins, but there is none 
for that, and the most marked depravity is shown by in- 
dulging in it. In factories there is not only much profan- 
ity but lots of vulgarity, and before the women employed 
there, too. If any man is beneath contempt it is the man 
who will 

SMOKE BEFORE A WOMAN; 

but words fail to depict the man who talks profanely and 
vulgarly in the presence of women. A man who comes 
to our city, obtains employment in one of our factories 
and then hires a small room for sleeping purposes is to be 
pitied, as his is a lonely existence. A studious man, who 
is a lover of books, can get along all right, as can a reli- 
gious man, who finds good society in churches and admit- 
tance to our homes, but it is the other class who are to be 
pitied. They are neither studious nor religious, and they 
fall into the temptation of reading undesirable literature'. 
Look into any of the newsrooms on Saturday afternoon 
and see what' class of reading is bought for Sundays be- 
sides the Sunday newspapers. Here the pastor spoke of 
his experience of Sunday newspapers. He said he had 
two great 32-page papers sent to him, and upon looking 
them over he found not a line of good or sense in them. 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 21 

Continuing he said : There is danger for these isolated 
factory people in making acquaintances . They feel lonely 
and in looking about for companions meet undesirable 
friends. That is one of the perils of those who come here 
— and who don't come here? " All who were born here 
please hold up their hands/" said Mr. Richardson, and but 
four hands were raised. Undesirable societies and asso- 
ciations form another evil for the man who comes to 
Brockton. Societies which cannot be classed separately 
in regard to character. The man who comes here joins 
thern^ and it is found that the most of them are solely for 
the purpose of getting up dances. 

Dancing is in itself a great evil. The other day I was 
stopped on the street by a policeman who asked me if I 
had bought a ticket for the police ball. I said I had not. 
He said, " Well, I suppose you are going to an<e up," and 
upon my answering in the 1 negative he asked me if I did 
not think it a good thing, and I thereupon put a question 
to him. I asked him if he did not know that many young 
girls would go there on that night and there meet tempt- 
ation in the person of bad mem and he did not deny it. 
Men and women at a dance take liberties which if com- 
mitted in your home before your wives or daughters 
would entitle them to be 

KICKED FR03I YOUR DOOR. 

Why is it any better in the dance hall? The devil's 
church is the theatre, his society the dance hall, and his 
bible the playing cards. 

The drinking evil in Brockton is under good control, 
perhaps better than elsewhere, yet there is much of it 
here. Only the other day the press chronicled the death 
of a man in one of our hotels who had literally drank him- 
self to death, and there are undoubtedly many children 
who cannot go to school on account of drunken parents. 
If we but knew the inside of many clubs we would find 
there every facility for obtaining drink. In this city there 
are three lines of temptation — drink, gambling and licen- 
tiousness. If there is not much of the lottery there is lots 
of gambling, and I know of one man who does nothing 
else. Men go to Boston on the train every day and gam- 
ble in and out. Cards lead the way to gambling, and a 
gambler is harder to save than a drunkard. Gambling is 
an almost uncontrollable passion. 



22 brockton's perils. 

The chief peril of thisjcity is licentiousness, and it is 
the worst peril of all. It must be handled carefully, as 
are all sins of the flesh in the Word of God. Licentious- 
ness deadens conscience and the soul. The indications 
that this sin is rampant in Brockton may be seen, for out 
of the heart comes vulgar speech. In the past few months 
a number of young women have been ruined. It is not 
uncommon in this city for young men to congregate and 
boast of their licentiousness among themselves and often- 
times before clean men, who of course becomes more or 
less hardened by listening. It is not an unheard of thing 
for women to hire rooms and ask permission to receive 
gentlemen friends in them . A physician in Brockton , one 
in high standing, has repeatedly given advice on certain 
things which is most damnably ruinous. There have been 
in this city lately, as a result of licentiousness, most hor- 
rible deaths. Men in the prime of life have rotted down 
before the very eyes of their friends. 

The theatre is very popular in Brockton and has many 
comparatively good men as supporters, yet its result is 
ruinous. Clean plays do not pay, and the dirtier and viler 
the play the greater the attendance. There is no question 
as to the moral standard of it. 

What shall be done to keep clear of these perils? We 
should so stand and act as to avert them. No man is free 
from them all. He may be from one or another, but un- 
less safe in Jesus not from them all. Don't go anywhere 
where you can't take Jesus with you. We need men and 
women who will stand strong and firm as rocks to avert 
this peril, as does at least one church in Brockton. 

At the close of the sermon a special meeting was held 
for the purpose of hearing any who desired to be taken 
into the church. 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 2P> 



y. 



THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTION. 

(Tuesday, Feb. IS.) 

THE SERMON ON PERILS— PASTOR RICHARDSON POINTS OUT 
TWO REPORTORIAL ERRORS. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise: 

Dear Sir — Your paper, in its note prefixed to the re- 
port of my Sunday evening sermon, characterized it as 
" scathing denunciation/*' etc. I think the large congre- 
gation that listened to that discourse will bear witness 
that it was nothing of that kind. Neither in its matter, 
nor in its style of delivery, was there anything that could 
properly be called " denunciatory. " If any exception 
should be made, it would be in the characterization which 
your reporter so wonderfully twisted as to make me affirm 
that a man who smoked before women was beneath con- 
tempt. >Vhat I did say, speaking of the vulgarity before 
young women in one of these shops, was this: "The man 
who will smoke in the presence of ladies is rather low 
down in the scale of courtesy; the man who will use pro- 
fane language before them is beneath contempt ; but for 
the man who will indulge in vulgarity in their presence I 
have no words by which I care to characterize him." 

Your reporter no doubt did the best he could. Any 
reporter who attempts to follow my rapid speech has my 
sympathy, and I am always grateful to have the press take 
up my thoughts and give them a still wider audience. I 
fully appreciate the uniform courtesy and kindness of the 
press of Brockton toward myself, but I hope that your 
readers will not hold me responsible for all that the re- 
porters make me say. In this sermon the real point has 
been missed again and again. I will not undertake to 
correct all, but I would like to add that I did not say what 
is credited to me concerning the Sunday newspapers. 
What I did say was that I did not find in* the papers to 
which I referred a single line of anything that could by 
any stretch of courtesy be called religious. 

Pardon me for taking so much space. There are other 
errors, some of them grotesquely ridiculous. But let 



24 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

those go. Accept my thanks for assisting me to stir up 
our city to do away with its perils, even though I am held 
responsible for statements that I never made and which I 
should be unwilling to father. 

Very respectfully, 

J. K. RlCHARDSON, 

Pastor of First Baptist Church. 



VI. 
THE EEPLY OF THE ENTERPRISE. 

(Feb. 19, 1890.) 

. Pastor Richardson has pointed out two instances in 
which, he affirms, he was misrepresented by the Enter- 
prise man who took down his sermon last Sunday, and 
makes the general charge that there were " other errors, 
some of them grotesquely ridiculous." This would mean 
either that the reporter was incompetent or that he wil- 
fully distorted the clergyman's words. This sermon, we 
understand, was delivered from memory or extemporan- 
eously, and under some excitement, both on the part of 
the pastor and his audience. The reporter was there to 
attend to business, which in this case was to make a full 
and fair report, within certain limitations as to space, of 
what was said about "Brockton's perils," He labored 
under no excitement, and took very full notes. If these 
notes are correct his report gave precisely what the clergy- 
man said, and there is no reason and no excuse why he 
should have written one thing in his note-book when the 
speaker said something else. The report for publication 
was written out immediately afterwards, when the ser- 
mon was fresh in his mind, and he is personally quite pos- 
itive that he did not misreport the speaker on any essen- 
tial point. 

Mr. Richardson knows something of newspaper work, 
and we feel assured that he will be willing to grant that 
it is possible that the reporter is not whollv responsible 
for some of the statements that the clergyman is " un- 
willing to father," 



BROCKTON S PERILS. 



VII. 

EEPORT OF THE GAZETTE. 

In Brockton there are two daily papers : The Enterprise 
and the Gazette, The Gazette is the younger of the two, 
and in time past has labored under many disadvantages. 
At the present time it has some most estimable and enter- 
prising men at the head of its management and is very rap- 
idly forging to the front. It is a clean paper, very strongly 
in favor of temperance and outspoken on the right side of 
all great moral questions. This paper, from first to last, 
stood by the author and his deliverances. Its report of 
this particular sermon was rather brief, owing to the fact 
that the editors relied on the author to furnish them a re- 
port and he, presuming that they would not wish to devote 
very much space to the same, made it as short as he could 
and give any idea of what was said. It is given here in 
order that it may be known just what means the people 
had of judging the sermon. That report was as follows : 

BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

Rev. J. K. Eichardson spoke last evening, very carefully 
but very plainly, on the perils that here beset men and 
women. He treated of the spirit of money getting for 
the mere sake of money, commending the enterprise of 
the city, but calling attention to the dangers that spring 
therefrom. He treated of factory life, speaking in the 
highest terms of some of the men and women there to be 
found, but showing that the bad were with the good and 
that in some cases they seem to overawe and outinfluence 
them. The lack of home life and influence in the case of 
so many was shown to be a fruitful source of peril, open- 
ing the way to undesirable literature, friends and associa- 
tions. The drink evil was mentioned as here under unu- 
sual control and yet here. Gambling was treated under 
the heads of the lotterv business and the more direct work 



26 brockton's perils. 

with cards. The perils of licentiousness were handled 
without gloves. 

Incidentally the speaker discussed card playing, dancing 
and theatre going, showing very plainly that the founda- 
tion of the opposition to these things on the part of the 
church lies in the conviction that they minister to vice. 
Having thus shown up the perils, the speaker presented 
Jesus Christ as the one who was able to save men and 
women from these perils, urging all to take Him as their 
personal saviour and friend. 

In the second meeting many spoke in commendation 
and confirmation of the sermon. 



brockton's perils. 27 



VIII. 



CRITICISMS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. 

In the same paper, the Enterprise of Feb. 18, in which 
appeared the author's correction of the erroneous report 
of the Enterprise of Feb. 17. there also appeared the 
following: 

A PURE AXD HONEST MAJORITY. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise: 

Dear Sir — I do not believe that •'•' the chief peril of this 
city is licentiousness," and in support of my opinion I 
want to say a word. 

I certainly have had ample opportunity of observation, 
for during the past two years I have, in the prosecution 
of my profession, been in all parts of your city at all hours 
of the day and night, and have come into intimate com- 
munication with all classes of our citizens; and I posi- 
tively affirm that I have never seen on the streets or in the 
homes of any city or town a larger proportion of the in- 
habitants who were modest-appearing women and well- 
behaved men; and I have kept house in large cities in 22 
States, and am familiar with nearly all our large cities. 
I believe firmly that a vast majority of Brockton's men 
and women are pure and honest : and that the parents of 
the young men and women who come from other towns 
to work in our factories may rest assured that their chil- 
dren are in no worse peril from any kind of immorality 
here than in any other town . however favored. Brockton 
has 100 pure women and honest men to one otherwise : 
and when anyone utters that which is calculated to mar 
the reputation of our city and cause needless anxiety to 
the country friends of young folks who have located here 
it is well to just mention the facts m the case. 
Respectfully, 

Arch McM aster. 

In the same issue of the Enterprise, Feb. 18. appeared 
several items not so very unusual in themselves, but items 
that specially impressed many on account of coming just 
at that time. 



28 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

Under the heading' " Shivering in the Cold/' and the 
sub-head " A man undresses himself in the Gardner Block 
ruins," an account, occupying more than a quarter of a 
column, was given of a man found by a policeman in these 
ruins undressed and nearly frozen. The man had come 
to this city from North Easton to attend a dance. On 
leaving the dance hall, he became so bewildered that he 
did not know where he was or what he was about and 
wandered into these ruins, almost entirely burned down 
a few nights before, and on a cold winter night had un- 
dressed and attempted to go to bed in the debris. He 
might better have gone to bed in the street. It was this 
incident that led to the placing, according to the Gazette, 
of a sign reading, " Hotel Gardner." And still later, 
according to the Enterprise, one reading, " lodgings here, 
pick your bed." From private sources it was afterward 
learned that this man was a foreman of a room in a fac- 
tory at North Easton where some of the Brockton people 
worked. The reader can draw his own inference as to 
the character of the man and the dance, and as to the de- 
sirability of having one's daughters under such influence. 

A still longer article in the same paper was headed, 
" three Brockton defendants found guilty by the jury." 
It was an account of the conviction of a gray haired man 
and a woman some twenty years his junior for adultery, 
and of another man for keeping intoxicating liquor with 
intent to sell. 

A third item concerned the Louisiana lottery and its 
offer of $10,000,000 for a renewal of its charter. This 
item, which was editorial, closed with, " what a mint of 
money it must make out of its dupes." 

A day or two later there appeared in the Gazette the 
following, which is a sample of several warnings of the 
same kind sent out about the same time : 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 29 

A NOTORIOUS RESORT — IT IS BEING HATCHED BY THE 
POLICE AND MAY BE CLOSED. 

Over the railroad track, in the vicinity of the " bush/* 
stands a house which has for some time been under sur- 
veilance of the police, and v\iiich if not soon closed of its 
own accord, will be liable to receive a visit from the guar- 
dians of the law, some line night. 

The place was started about a month or six weeks ago, 
and they say has jnst begun running full blast. Several 
disreputable characters are supposed to be there. The 
house has been fitted in a handsome manner and is being 
conducted by a well known man, who, until the present, 
is said to have found his principal support in his wife's 
earnings. 

The class that patronizes this resort is not commonly 
regarded as so bad as one might imagine, and should a 
raid be made some night, a surprise would be in store for 
the public. 

A second place of this nature is said to exist on High 
street, but being run in a quiet manner has not excited 
the comment bestowed upon the former. It is only a 
matter of a short time when some of these places, of 
which Brockton fortunately has but a few, will be shown 
up. 

The Enterprise for Feb. 19, contained two letters crit- 
icising the sermon, as follows: 

" brockton's perils. ,? — "truth" thinks the sermon 
did more harm than good. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise: 

" But the greatest of these is charity. v There can be 
no doubt, in any unprejudiced mind, that the well-meant 
(?) fulmination of the Rev. Mr. Richardson last Sabbath 
against vice did infinitely more harm than good. It was 
in shocking taste at the best, and was a blunder through- 
out. Granted that it was all true, as against a few exam- 
ples held up to the light, the real question at once recurs, 
What good can come of it? 

There is a very radical difference of opinion among 
good, clean people as to what constitutes sin. when judg- 
ing of the amusements of the present day. Cards, danc- 
ing or theatre-going are, to the writer, a bore; yet I do 



30 bkockton's perils. 

not consider them sinful when properly indulged in. 
Their proper exercise is exactly in line of the lesson of 
Him who spake as never man spake: " A new command- 
ment I give unto you, that ye love one another." The 
love of man for man, as such, is mainly shown by associ- 
ation. It should not take many more centuries to inform 
people that eating too much of the tree of knowledge even 
might make one sick. 

1 object to the sermon because it tears open wounds 
partially healed, and interferes with the sanctity of the 
home. It is not following after one who was meek and 
lowly of spirit, who went about doing good. There is 
probably no class or sect about which there is so much 
scandel in the newspapers as the one represented by my 
reverend brother. And my admonition to him will be fo 
not only carefully study the golden rule, but so far as in 
him lies to follow its teachings, not forgetting the advice 
given concerning the woman: " Let him that is without 
sin cast the first stone." Truth. 

THE CRITIC CRITICISED. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise: 

A man with " Eev." prefixed to his name preached on 
Sunday to an audience, some of whom said u amen" to 
the sentiments he expressed. This man is paid to teach 
his f ellowmen how to live Christian lives. In the language 
of the street, he gave Brockton " a very black eye." 

He said ours was a factory city, and depicted the vices 
he alleges to be prevalent. 

Are his charges true, or does he take hearsay for 
evidence ? 

Our love of money he quotes as an evil ; but where will 
you find wage-earners and wealth accumulators who 
spend more freely than in Brockton? Every dollar is 
turned to account and kept in circulation, thereby bene- 
fitting the community, including the churches. We have 
no misers. 

That the wealthiest resident of Brockton is the most 
unhappy is a fable, on a par with those the writer listened 
to in his youth from the lips of -" Rev." gentlemen who 
never tired of painting a horrible and revolting death-bed 
scene for the man who said " The world is my country, 
to do good my religion." 



Brockton's perils. 31 

His criticisms of profanity and vulgarity are well 
enough, but those vices are universal and not peculiar to 
any city. 

The theatre, card playing and dancing take a large share 
of his abuse. Gambling on the train between Brockton 
and Boston is also one of his charges. The writer has on 
hundreds of trips for 20 years between Boston and this 
city watched card players on trains, and has never seen a 
solitary instance of gambling. 

" The devil's church is the theatre, his society the dance 
hall, his bible the playing cards." What a libel on re- 
spectable people ! Small wonder that men smile in derision 
at such sentiments. Strange that the reverend gentleman 
does not turn still further back toward the dark ages and 
preach that infamous doctrine of infant damnation. He 
would still hear •'•aniens," for, incredible as it may seem, 
such men still live in the 19th century. 

Much licentiousness he charges against our city. Prob- 
ably somebody told him so. Has he compared Brockton 
with other factory cities? An unprejudiced observer will 
tell you the comparison is 10 to 1 in favor of Brockton. 
Facts and figures will prove the assertion if the defamer 
of our city cares to search for such things. Let us be 
thankful that he admits there are some good people in the 
city. Perhaps there are 10, and Brockton will be spared 
a little longer. 

There is no doubt but that the reverend gentleman is 
full of religion, chock full of it ; but that the average man 
of the world carries more practical Christianity in his 
heart than can be crowded into the whole catalogue of 
ironclad creeds that are weekly hurled at the heads of un- 
fortunate sinners in Brockton is the opinion of 1890. 



In the dailies of Feb. 20, the author gave the following 
notice: 

WILL ANSWER HIS CRITICS. 

In giving his notices last evening, Rev. J. K. Richard- 
son announced that he would reply to the criticisms that 
have been made upon his last Sunday evening discourse. 
It is understood that he has been in the receipt of letters, 
which, together with more public criticisms, will form the 



32 BROCKTON S PERILS. 

basis of that to which he will reply. Mr. Richardson in- 
vites any others who may desire to make a point for or 
against that sermon, to communicate with him previous 
to Sunday. He also asks his critics to be present and listen 
for themselves. To which the Gazette added: Whatever 
one may think of the sermon, it is evident that Brockton 
has very rarely been so stirred as by this discourse of last 
Sunday evening. 

The Enterprise of Feb. 22, contained several other crit- 
icisms and items as follows : 

BROCKTON'S PERILS — A SHOP GIRL AND A WIFE REPLY TO 
REV. MR. RICHARDSON.. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise : 

I humbly ask a small space in your paper in order that 
I may speak a kind word of the factories and the help 
which they employ, and about which Rev. J.K. Richard- 
son spoke in such a scathing way in his sermon last Sun- 
day evening. 

Being a shop girl myself I speak from experience when 
I say that during the three years which I have been em- 
ployed in one of our city's largest factories I have never 
on any occasion heard or seen anything that was not fit to 
be heard or seen by either the person grown old and gray 
in God's service or the little innocent child. There is per- 
haps a good deal of corruption in a shoe shop, but as I 
have never seen it I have nothing to say on that subject. 
I simply state what I have experienced in my everyday 
life. I would like also to inform Mr. Richardson that 
two-thirds of his congregation on a Sunday afternoon are 
people who have spent the previous week in the shoe shop, 
and a greater part of the money with which he buys his 
daily bread and clothes and educates his children is earned 
there also. 

A few more words, and I am done. I am, as I have 
said, a shop girl. I hire one room. In that room I enter- 
tain my friends, both ladies and gentlemen. I attend the 
theatre occasionally, and like nothing better than to sit 
down to a quiet game of whist, which neither Inor any 
sensible person would consider gambling. I believe that 
as long as I conduct myself as becomes a lady, and do as 
my conscience bids me, I can feel sure that when life's 
fitful fever is over, and I leave the trials and cares of this 



Brockton's perils. 33 

world behind and go to meet my Father in heaven, lie will 
give me just as sweet a welcome and as happy a home in 
the life everlasting as lie will those that think their little 
band are to be clad in spotless white, with bright crowns 
placed on their heads and harps in their hands, ready to 
enjoy everlasting happiness, while the majority of people, 
poor blinded wretches, are to be burned in eternal tire. 

Perhaps I have been a little unjust in my remarks: but 
though God bids us that if our brother smite us on the 
one cheek we must turn the other also, he says. too. that 
there is a time for everything under the sun. and if that 
is true there must be a time for retaliating, for even the 
worm will turn when trodden upon. A Shop Girl. 

SMOKING AT HOME. 

To the Editor of the Enterprise : 

As a daily reader of your paper I ask leave to say a few 
words in defence of those whom "Rev. Mr. Richardson 
denounced in such an unchristianlike spirit in his sermon 
last Sunday. 

Did he forget when making those statements that he 
was bringing reproach on many a fail- name? Perhaps in 
his daily walks in Brockton he may have met with one of 
those unfortunate ones. But does this signify that all or 
a majority of those who are obliged to toil in the factories 
for an honest living are clothed in licentiousness? This, 
to say the least, is uncharitable, and especially when com- 
ing from the lips of one who should be all charity. 

Mr. Eichardson says that " The man who will smoke in 
the presence of ladies is rather low down in the scale of 
courtesy." To most men smoking is a pleasant pastime. 
Shall the wife send her husband forth into the streets and 
club rooms, where according to the clergyman, he will 
contract bad habits? Far be it from me'as a wife to set 
such an example and disturb a happy home. 

It would have been far better to have let the dead rest. 
Did he forget those left behind, those who would suffer 
in mind when hearing his discourse? They are not to 
blame for the faults of "others. Why bring them before 
the public eye? It was not necessary to open the old 
wounds. 

Servant of God,, be trou more charitable. Watch thy- 
self. Those who have prof essed to be as good as thou art 
have fallen. Charity, 



34 brockton's perils. 

In the same paper, under the head of Saturday scrib- 
lings, was the following: 

The communications that have poured into the Enter- 
prise office the past week have been striking' evidence of 
the impression Pastor Richardson's sermon of last Sunday 
made upon the public mind when given out to the great 
congregation that this paper reaches every day. Quite a 
number have not been printed, either because of lack of 
space or because they were in essential points similar to 
those that were published. 

Sunday evening the preacher who has so stirred up our 
people will reply to these and to other criticisms that have 
been sent directly to him. There will naturally be a wide- 
spread interest in what he will have to say, and a steno- 
graphic or short-hand writer will report his words for 
the Enterprise verbatim. 

In addition to these articles in the newspapers, the author 
was in receipt of several private, written, as well as not 
a few verbal, communications. Nearly ail of these were 
highly commendatory. These private communications 
the author does not deem himself at liberty to print in full 
with the names, but he gives, without the names, so much 
as he deems of general interest and no betrayal of confi- 
dence. Several communications, written and verbal, 
came from catholics. The following is one : 

Brockton, Fob. 17, 1890. 
Reverend Sir: — Having lived some years in this city, 
I gradually gave my attention to the manner in which the 
people lived, not as they appear but as they are, and, as I 
concluded that the state of affairs was deplorable, I also 
regretted that no clergyman spoke openly ; but as I read 
your sermon of yesterday I was glad that some one had 
courage. I hope that others may follow your example. 

The following, dated Feb. 20, was from a gentleman 
very prominent in the religious work of this city. It had 
pasted at the head of the letter the following clipping : 

"Never be afraid of criticism or ridicule ; always remem- 
ber that opposition and calumny are often the highest trib- 
ute that vice and folly can pay to virtue and wisdom." 
The letter itsel t was as follows : 



BROCKTON S PERILS. oo 

Rev. J. K. Richardson, 

Dear Brother : — 

Ever since I read your sermon of 
last Sunday and the absurd criticisms of the same in the 
following papers, and have heard more of such criticisms 
from professing Christians, I have been led to say and 
feel that I thanked God that there was one who was not 
backward about telling the public of its peril. To-night 
my wife handed me a paper with the above clipping in it, 
Raying, "send that to Mr. Richardson." * * * It 
is God's word which you are preaching and we have his 
promise of honoring it. 

"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, anil persecute you, and shall 
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 

ilejoiee, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: 
for so persecuted they the prophets which were' before you." 

" If ye were of the' world, the world would love his own; but because 
ye are not of the world 5 but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore 
the world hateth you. 

Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater 
than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; 
if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." 



Among these private letters was one that criticised 
sharply the position taken by the author. It was the only 
letter of that kind received by the preacher of the sermon. 
It was very long, but we give the gist of it. It was hon- 
orably signed and the address of the writer given in full. 

Having stated that he had read the report "of this ser- 
mon with interest and that perhaps it was incorrectly re- 
ported, he asked the author to write him whether or not 
he had sufficient evidence for the charges made. He then 
went on to say: " In my room a man dropped • a double 
entendre 7 to a girl, and the foreman overhearing it 
promptly said, ' stop that or quit." Any immorality in 
another shop which could be named, coming to the 
knowledge of the proprietor would mean dismissal. In 
still another factory it is admitted that the foreman was 
bad, very bad, but the representations of the * girls ' led 
him to resign shortly, which certainly speaks well for the 
girls. In fact, to use an expressive slang phrase current 
among men who according to your representations ought 
to know, factory girls are • hard to get around." ,; 

" Do not infer from what I have -aid that I consider 
the feminine morality of this city immaculate. The ratio 



o6 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

of vulgar speaking women is about seven, to eight among 
men, but the ' loudest ' among them will sometime jeal- 
ously guard her purity (?) * * * * Would a pure- 
minded man any sooner use vulgarity among men than 
among women?" * * * " The devil attends church 
and picks up the susceptible of both sexes. I have seen 
it and followed them home." Turning his attention to 
cards, he asks " how about billiards and pool, dominoes, 
backgammon and checkers. I heard a man try to arrange 
a game of checkers for money in a room kept open by 
good people for the public benefit, young boys admitted." 
Turning to the question of licentiousness, he inquires if 
it is worse in this city than in other cities of similar pop- 
ulation, and adds: " for years my acquaintance has been 
somewhat extended in several towns within ten miles of 
Boston, and things seen and heard incline me to believe 
that the level of morality in Brockton is above many of 
her neighbors. I think that investigation will prove to 
you that in the factories it is commonly reported that the 
'hardest tickets ? of both sexes are from out of town." 
He discusses some other points growing out of the erron- 
eous reports of the Enterprise, puts in his idea that,- al- 
though he acknowledges that he knows nothing about it 
personally, he thinks the author mistaken about clean the- 
atrical plays not paying, and concludes with the statement 
that he has seen young men turn away disgusted with the 
vulgar chaff of chance acquaintances ; that he knows of 
one man, a catholic, enrployecl in a factory " gang room " 
who will not tolerate obscene jokes ; and that he had seen 
one man rebuke another for vulgarity in the presence of 
children, and, inasmuch as he, who is only one among 
thirty thousand, has seen so much goodness, he cannot 
believe that Brockton is quite so black as it was painted 
in the sermon on '-' Brockton's Perils."' 

The following letter from one of the deacons of the 
church will give an idea of the general feeling in the 
church : 

Wednesday Evening. 
Dear Beloved Pastor: — 

At home to-night I read the criticism on your Sunday 
evening sermon by the Enterprise. I am proud of a 
pastor who dares stand up and preach the truth in such a 



Brockton's perils. 37 

plain way as to make sinners and lukewarm Christians 
squirm. * Paul made some of them uneasy in his day. 
AVe want more Pauls to-day. The next time you preach 
anything' of that kind I want to be there and put in a 
hearty amen, so loud that it can be heard in the Enterprise 
office. Henry A. IYillis. 

On Sundav morning, a friend handed the author a slip 
that he had cut from the Boston Herald, containing the 
following, under the heading " Brockton " in large type, 
and the sub-head " A minister's Utopian view of her social 
fabric." In brackets were the words, " from our regular 
correspondent." 

Brocktox, Feb. 22, 1890. — A congregation made up of 
Brock tomans listened to a sermon at the First Baptist 
church last Sunday which has caused the greatest sensa- 
tion of the year, because of the manner in which it referred 
to Brockton and her people. The title of the sermon was 
u Brockton's Perils: or the dangers which here beset men 
and women." With this text the pastor preached a dis- 
course such as will long be remembered in this city. If 
there were any faults, whether real or imaginary, they 
were laid open to public gaze, and perhaps this is what 
causes so many people to differ from the reverend gentle- 
man in his denunciatory remarks. The sum and substance 
of his sermon went to show that Brockton was a factory 
city ; that the people worshipped the almighty dollar with 
bended knee ; that there is too much profanity on the 
streets : that bad literature was too freely sought — and, 
by the way, the reverend gentleman included the Sunday 
paper in this class ; that the people follow the dancing art 
with too lavish adoration ; that the drink evil is quite 
prominent : that the game of innocent whist on the train 
leads to gambling ; that licentiousness is rife in our midst ; 
that the theatre is the devil's church. These are a few of 
the many bad pictures which were jjainted last Sunday 
before a Brockton audience, and not one of the paintings 
had a bright spot on the landscape. It is not to be won- 
dered that the sermon did create a sensation in view of 
the wholesale denunciation which was given from the 
pulpit, where the word of God is preached. People are 
asking themselves. "Are these perils real or imaginary?" 
On this question there appears to be a diversity of opinion. 



08 bkockton's perils. 

and your correspondent has been requested to place 
Brockton in a proper light before the outside public. In 
the first place the charge that Brockton is a factory city 
must be answered. It is true that Brockton is made up 
almost entirely of shoe factories, and these give employ- 
ment to thousands of men and women , and without them, 
Brockton would not be a city of 30,000 people, and, there- 
fore, there would be fewer churches, fewer schools, and 
the city would lack the other requisites which go to form 
a first-class community. Are Brocktonians as bad as they 
have been pictured/ Well, hardly. The people who are 
employed in the shoe industry are above the average in 
intelligence as compared with wage-earners in many of the 
mill towns of Massachusetts. Here they are paid good 
wages, and thereby are enabled to make' home pleasant, 
to educate the children as they should be, but this cannot 
be said of other manufacturing localities. The love for 
money in this community is not any more ardent than in 
any other town or city in the country. Human nature is 
so constituted that one of its component parts is selfish- 
ness, and this sin, if it can be called such, crops out in all 
classes, whether laymen or preachers. The layman goes 
where he can get the highest salary, and the same is in a 
majority of cases true of other professions. Without the 
almighty dollar life would hardly be worth the living, be- 
cause it is necessary in order to steer the craft of susten- 
ance through the river of life. Brockton's people have 
always been generous with their money, and no appeal 
for aid, whether from press or pulpit, has ever been given 
a deaf ear. The prosperity of the churches in this city, 
and the large number of them, is sufficient answer to any 
statement to the contrary. In regard to the charge that 
there is too much profanity on the streets, there is no more 
of it here than elsewhere. On the contrary, since the 
saloon has been closed Brockton has become a most orderly 
city, and ladies are free from insult at any hour in the 24 
which make a day. The record of crime is much less 
than it was under the halcyon reign of the saloon ; in fact, 
there is no crime to speak of, save that of illegal liquor 
selling, and there is very little of that. The next charge 
is that bad literature has a large circulation in Brockton, 
but while this may be true, still the literature that is good 
is read by a majority of the people, as the newsdealers 
readily testify. * In regard to the Sunday newspaper being 



Brockton's perils. 39 

a source of evil, on this question, all people do not agree. 
The Sunday paper is read in this city by people of all 
denominations, and some of those who denounce it often 
borrow a copy of their neighbor to read after church. It 
may be wicked to pay out a nickel to purchase a copy, but 
it is no sin to borrow one. The next and perhaps serious 
charge in the minds of some, is that dancing is indulged 
altogether too freely, and that societies are organized for 
that purpose solely. There are numerous organizations 
in this city formed for various purposes. Some are organ- 
ized for beneficent objects, and without them there would 
be much suffering among a certain class of people. The 
next indictment in the sermon is that gambling is carried 
on. That an innocent game of whist is injurious to the 
people is hardly to be credited, and that it encourages 
gambling will not be believed by a majority of people. 
The records of the police court go to show that Brockton 
is free from gambling dens, or people who follow the 
games for what money is in them. Another charge, and 
a most serous one. is " that licentiousness is the worst peril 
of all." To prove that this evil predominates in Brockton, 
it will be necessary, it is claimed, to produce evidence that 
would satisfy a jury in court. In this respect Brockton is 
much more clean than any other locality. There are no 
house> of prostitution in our midst, which is evidence 
enough to some that the rest of the charge is without 
foundation. The class of men and women who are em- 
ployed in the factories are not what they are accused of, 
as any unprejudiced individual can ascertain by visiting 
the several rooms which make up a shoe factory. Any 
person of either sex can visit the rooms of the factories 
and pass through them without hearing an insulting or an 
immoral remark from one of the operatives. The reason 
of this is that the class of men and women who are em- 
ployed in the factories are enabled, by receiving good 
wages, to secure honorably the necessaries of life. It is 
the fashion, in the city, where young men and women 
have no parents or relatives, to engage rooms, and there 
make a temporary home for their own. as well as the com- 
fort of their friends. To cast suspicion on them is con- 
sidered an injustice. What place is more appropriate to 
receive friends than at your home whether that home is 
in the handsome dwelling or in an attic room of some ten- 
ement house. It is a home, no matter where it is located. 



40 brockton's perils. 

and its surroundings may be just as sacred as the residence 
of any of the well-to-do classes. To bring about a change 
in this, or on the other lines laid down by the gospel ex- 
pounded, would require a revolution in our social condi- 
tions, a reform that is too far distant. In regard to the 
charge that " men in the prime of life have rotted down 
before the eyes of their friends," considerable censure has 
been directed at the head of the pastor for making this 
remark. Your correspondent has heard the same state- 
ment made on other occasions, and by people who had no 
means of knowing whether the charge was true or not. 
It would have been just as well to have mentioned names 
in this matter, because the public has heard the rumor so 
often in connection with a prominent resident. Those 
who knew the character of the man, against whom the 
foul suspicion is directed while he slumbers in the grave, 
do not believe he would have dealt with licentiousness so 
severely in his official capacity and be inconsistent else- 
where. Brockton's perils are not very alarming after all. 
On the contrary, the city is quite free from dangers, which 
surround other communities and hamper their prosperity. 
None of the evils which are supposed to exist are any 
different from those found in other cities. The impres- 
sion given by the sermon is that Brockton is not altogether 
free from the vices which flesh is heir to, but with this 
impression it must be taken into consideration that the 
city has less perils than found usually in a city made up 
of a manufacturing people. There is one peculiarity 
about the city that is not noticable elsewhere, and that is 
the mingling of the workmen and employers. To go into 
the streets of the city and pick out a workman or a man- 
ufacturer would be a hard task, because they bear so much 
resemblance in appearance and in conduct to their em- 
ployers. Both find their interests are identical, and 
whether in church, factory or society, you will always 
find the workman and his employer side by side. There 
is no attempt to create an aristocracy in this city, The 
workman does not begrudge what his employer has, be- 
cause it is the result of energy and perseverance, and the 
employer does not look down with contempt on the work- 
man because the latter has only a few dollars in his pocket- 
book. This is the secret of Brockton's success, and so 
long as it continues, it is reasonable to expect that Brock- 
ton will prosper. The excuse for any perils existing in 



brockton's perils. 41 

this city are very few. The shoemakers, to a great extent 
own their houses, and. besides, save their earnings. The 
churches and other institutions which tend to make a com- 
munity all the better off. are given liberal support. There 
may be perils, but they are few, and not what the public 
have been led to believe from a sermon preached a week 
ago. There is no city or town that will be freed in a day 
from certain evils, and, until the millenium is reached, 
this state of affairs will continue to exist. If there are 
any perils it appears to be the duty of the clergymen to 
counteract them by showing the people what the result of 
their continuance will be. At all events, the sermon 
preached furnished the people with a subject to discuss 
during the week. 



The above letter reminds one of the defenee made by 
the man who was charged with having borrowed and 
broken his neighbor's kettle : "I never borrowed the ket- 
tle ; it was cracked when I borrowed it : it was whole 
when I returned it." Such a defense practically admits 
the whole charge in its very denial. In another aspect, 
it is a good illustration of the old game of " scandal, " 
since it even misrepresents the misrepresentation of the 
Enterprise reporter. 

On Saturday the Enterprise had the following among 
its news items : 

• ; 'Truth,' < 1890 ? and other caustic critics of Rev. J. 
K. Richardson's sermon on *• Brockton Perils " should 
attend the service to-morrow evening and hear his reply." 

That advice, whether taken or not by the persons re- 
ferred to, was certainly very widely acted upon. Long 
before time for service, the church was crowded to its 
utmost capacity. Hundreds went away unable to get- 
further than the door. A quarter of an hour before the 
time for service the doors were closed to prevent the 
crowding of others to get within sound of the voice of 
the speaker. Never had a speaker a more attentive audi- 
ence as he preached the sermon that follows. 



42 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

IX. 
FIEST REPLY: BROCKTON IS NOT HEAVEN. 



Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man Roweth, 
that shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the 
flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shallot' the 
Spirit reap life eternal. — Gal. vi. 7, S. 

[Iii opening the service, Romans viii. 1-17 Avas read 
with very marked effect. It was frequently alluded to 
afterward, as seeming to be a reply in and of itself. The 
sermon, which was fully written out and carefully read, 
was as follows:] 

There are only two ways for mankind to pursue: the 
strait way, leading unto life ; and the broad way, leading 
unto death. 

Two forces are contending for the mastery of this world 
of humanity : satan and the hosts of darkness ; Jesus and 
the forces of light. On one side or the^other every man 
and woman is of necessity enrolled. He who is not for 
Christ is against him. He who is not against Christ is for 
him. There is no neutral ground. 

Those who travel the broad way, those who~are allied 
with the forces of evil, are not over fond^ of those who 
belong to the other party. They like them well enough in 
certain ways. They like them well enough if they will 
let them alone ; wink at their wrong doing ; concede that 
it may be just as well to go one way as^ thej other^to be 
allied with the one kingdom as the other. But the man 
who is thoroughly loyal to Jesus Christ is quite likely to 
arouse the antagonism of the world, espeei all yj when he 
rebukes its sins. Herod held John in high esteem, but 
when John rebuked Herod's personal sin, Herod put John 
in prison and, at the instignation of the woman who shared 
in his guilt and its rebuke, he cut off the head of him of 
whom Jesus said that no greater had been born of woman. 
Jesus Christ himself is confessedly the most beautiful and 
perfect character that this world has ever seen, yet the 
world hated him^and compassed his death. Just before 
that event ? on the night preceding his crucifixion, Jesus 



brockton's perils. 43 

told his disciples that as the world hated him they need 
not think it strange if it also hated them, and added: " if 
ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but 
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you 
out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." In 
the prayer that followed, asking not alone for them, but 
for all who through their word should believe on him, he 
said, " I have given unto them thy word; and the world 
hath hated them, because they are not of the world.-' 

Standing, as the body that this church represents has 
ever done, from the days of the new testament until now, 
for the word of God in all its purity, contending earnestly 
for the-once-for-all-delivered-faith, in making answer to 
my critics I do not think it strange that among those crit- 
icisms have been not only expressions of almost extreme 
hatred to myself , such as, "I would like to wring his 
neck," <; he cannot stay in Brockton," and the like, but 
that this church, so loyal to the truth, to this work and to 
its pastor in speaking out thus boldly, and the denomina- 
tion itself, shares in these expressions of ill will.* 

Why are these men so wonderfully bitter? why does 
not the south tolerate free speech? why does the saloon- 
keeper kill a minister that has spoken against the drink, 
evil? To ask such questions is to answer them. It is not 
strange that a world lying in the wicked one should not 
love such people and such churches overmuch. I have no 
anxiety to curry favor with that world that is hostile to 
my Christ. I have not come here to-night expecting to 
please men, unless they are pleased with the truth of God 
spoken in love and sincerity and yet in all plainness. I 
am not here to pare down the word of God, to soften it 
to suit a carnal mind, to make compromises by which it 
may be made more acceptable to a sinful world. I am 
not here to excuse myself, or to please anybody but my 
Lord. I believe myself called of God to be his ambassa- 
dor and his word I must speak whether men will hear or 
will forbear ; whether it pleases them or angers them. I 
speak realizing that I must shortly stand with you at the 
bar of God, there to give an account for every utterance, 
even though it be a merely idle word. I speak realizing 
by this very anger that there is more need than I dreamed 
of speaking boldly against these evils. 

*Tn private the expression above quoted, and others like them, were 
freely used, while church and denomination were bitterly stigmatized. 



44 brocrton ? s perils. 



GOOD WILL DESIRED. 



And yet no man would be better pleased than myself to 
have the good will of all his fellows. There is probably 
no man living that loves better to have the friendship of 
his fellows, provided that friendship is not purchased at 
the cost of the sacrifice of convictions. This world, how- 
ever, has nothing to offer that by contrast can compare 
with the favor of the Son of God. That favor I must 
have and that favor I must keep, cost what it may. I 
love life, I think as well as any man, and probably enjoy 
it much more than most, and yet if it was a question of 
my life, as some here would seem to like to make it, I 
should still feel constrained to speak out the words I am 
commissioned to preach. The message is not mine, but 
God's. That message I must utter as I understand it, cost 
what it may. It was not so long ago but that many of 
you remember when, on the Held of battle, we faced death 
in every form for conviction's sake concerning our coun- 
try and the flag ; that flag that we were all so glad to see 
honored as it was yesterday.* But he must be a strange 
compound who can peril his life for the sake of his coun- 
try and yet will not for his convictions of the very truth 
of God. 

Here let me say, as a sort of arqumentum ad hominem, 
(an argument fitted to the case however little of merit 
there may be in it in and of itself,) that I have been im- 
pressed with this fact, viz., that while men have blamed 
me for speaking as I did, or as I am reported to have 
done, to an audience of some four hundred people, more 
or less, 1 have heard no one criticise a paper that claims a 
circulation of more thousands than I had hundreds, (to 
say nothing of the fact that each paper is supposed to rep- 
resent several readers), for setting forth the same matter 
to their larger audience. In other words, what I said in 
the car, the Enterprise has repeated on the housetop ; 
what I said to the few, it has uttered to the many, and 
then fault is found with the first utterance, but none with 
the second. If it was so very wronof to say these things, 
why was it not wrong to print and circulate them? 

AVhile I am on this point, let me speak of the question 
of the correctness or incorrectness of the report in the 
Enterprise. I was considerably surprised at that report. 

*The preceding- clay was flag day for the schools of Brockton and was 
made a very grand occasion. 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 45 

I scarcely recognized it as the sermon I had preached. It 
reminded me of the reflected image to he seen in one of 
my rooms, where the lights and shadows make an image 
of a crescent and star look like a pitcher. But surprised 
as I was at the report, I was much more surprised when 
the paper undertook to make 

ITS REPORTER INFALLIBLE, 

and that against the testimony not only of the speaker 
but of the" hearers also. I know that at least two differ- 
ent persons told members of the Enterprise staff" that fhey 
had given an unfair report of the sermon, before I spoke 
to them myself and sent in my correction of what I cared 
most about. Even the pope is supposed to be infallible 
only when speaking ex cathedra, in matters of religion. 
If he should set lip as a newspaper reporter, I doubt if he 
would claim infallibility in that direction. Yet that seems 
to be the claim concerning this reporter. Two or three 
other things therefore need to be said: (1) The gentleman 
who made that report was not a shorthand reporter. (2) 
He is as yet a young man of very limited experience. By 
the time he is older and has had more experience we have 
no doubt he will be less inclined to claim infallibility. (3) 
It is a matter of some notoriety that this paper does make 
some very grave errors in its reports of other matters. 
and that \£) as far as reports of sermons by this paper is 
concerned, it has not had an altogether enviable reputa- 
tion among some of my brother clergymen. But having 
said this much in response to the claim of absolute accur- 
acy on the part of the reporter, as against the positive 
statements of myself and others. I am also bound in cour- 
tesy to add that, as a rule, for myself Ihave had no spec- 
ial cause of complaint; that generally I have found this 
paper making very fair reports of what I have said, and 
that I am happy to acknowledge thus publically the fact 
that they have sometimes taken pains to print in full views 
from which I understand they personally dissent.* I 
wish also to say that I am glad to have the papers take up 
what I say and give it another audience. I believe that 
even if they do get things mixed and twisted and some- 
times utterly misrepresent the real tone and spirit of what 
has been said, the people who really care to know will get 
at the truth, and, even if they do not, the very mistakes 

*This has been the case several times in our temperance battles. 



46 brockton's perils. 

themselves may sometimes arouse a spirit of inquiry and 
discussion that cannot fail to be beneficial. Discussion 
means agitation, and agitation is one of God's own meth- 
ods of overthrowing evil. I therefore thank God for 
agitation. Anything is better than stagnation in evil. 

Now, as to the sermon itself, I wish to say: (1) that it 
was delivered from a full and carefully prepared brief of 
eleven somewhat closely written pages, and that I care- 
fully followed the manuscript from point to point and 
from illustration to illustration. (2) That the sermon was 
delivered in a conversational and, for me, moderate man- 
ner of delivery, and in a more than usually low and quiet 
voice until I had entirely finished all that portion that has 
called forth criticism. Also, that in only two respects 
did I make any comparison as between Brockton and other 
cities or towns. I did compare it unfavorably as to pro- 
fanity on the streets, and favorably, very favorably, as to 
the drink evil and its control. There was certainly 

NO SPECIAL EXCITEMENT 

on my part, and the only evidence of it on the part of 
others was in the hearty aniens from some, and in the 
apparently rattled condition of the Enterprise reporter. 
(3) Of the adverse criticisms that have come to me, none 
of any moment have been made by persons who heard 
the sermon. On the contrary, that large audience, made 
up of the very best citizens of Brockton, seem to be a 
unit in commending the entire treatment. Is it not worth 
at least a moment's consideration, on the part of these 
rabid critics, that of all those who find so much fault not 
one of them heard the discourse itself. Does not every 
one know the almost utter impossibility of putting a 
thought in print so that it will impress as the spoken 
word? Does not every one know that newspaper reports 
are not always to be trusted? 
No small share of 

THE FEELING THAT HAS BEEN STIRRED UP 

is due to the misleading impressions conveyed by the 
head-lines and the note that preceded the report of the 
sermon, which head-lines and note we presume were 
prepared in the editorial rooms by those who did not hear 
the sermon. For these, of course, the reporter is not to 
be held responsible. 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 47 

As to the report itself, 1 have already corrected what I 
cared most about, but I can hardly forbear, remembering* 
that the reporter claims infallibility, to allude to one other 
thing*, ^dz., the statement that I said that licentiousness 
must " be handled carefully, as are all sins of the flesh in 
the word of God." Who but a person ignorant of the 
Bible could have uttered such an absurd statement? 

As to the other critics, 1 desire to say that some of their 
criticisms would not have been put by them into print if 
they had taken pains to notice what even the reporter 
credited me. with saying*. While I guarded much more 
carefully what I had to say on several of these points than 
would appear in the paper, (and that I do not consider 
any particular fault of the reporter who must compress) , 
I call attention to the fact that the reporter indicated that, 
as regards the good name of Brockton, as regards the good 
side of factory life, as regards the perils of money getting, 
I was at least somewhat guarded in my statements. If 
any man ever spoke in more complimentary terms of his 
own city, or concerning the better side of factory life, I 
should be pleased to read a report of his speech. 

BROCKTON IS NOT HEAVEN. 

I do not suppose that anybody thinks that Brockton is 
heaven, or that the millenium has as yet reached us, nor 
can I imagine that anybody is so foolish as to wish, even 
for compliment's sake, to have her thus depicted. 

Of the criticisms that have come to me directly, nearly 
all, as possibly might have been expected, have been of a 
complimentary character. They have been from all classes 
and from both sexes. Among them I prize very highly 
tributes from Roman Catholics who believed that these 
were just the truths that needed to be uttered and, al- 
though out of sympathy with me religiously, were pleased 
to rank themselves among* my friends on questions of 
sound morals. I wish thus publicly to thank those gentle- 
men for their kind, encouraging words. From protes- 
tants in all the churches, I have had, directly or indirectly, 
similar encouragement. While from this church, and the 
congregation that was present last Sunday evening, I have 
had the heartiest endorsement in what I said and for the 
maimer in which it w r as uttered. 

Of the adverse criticisms, the only one that seemed to 
me of any great weight was from a man who wrote me 



48 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

personally a long and courteous letter, to which he had 
the manliness to sign his name and to affix his full ad- 
dress.* He has my respect and I shall esteem it a pleas- 
ure to make his acquaintance. 

THE CRITICS IN PRINT. 

Of the critics that have chosen to appear in print, no 
one can have failed to notice that only one has had the 
courage of his or her convictions sufficiently to sign any- 
thing but an anoymous or fictitious name. The single 
honorable exception I am glad to recognize. Anonymous 
letters are not very creditable to those who write them, 
and they are especially discreditable when they attack a 
man who stands forth boldly to speak from the platform, 
or who appears in print over his own signature. Such 
anoymous persons can hardly expect that their statements 
will be entitled to the same respect and attention as are 
those that bear the name of some one who dares to be 
responsible for what is said. Nevertheless, in so far as I 
have any reason to suppose that they voice sentiments that 
are at all shared by others, I shall reply so far I think it 
is needful. 

It is hardly worth while to take up each letter separ- 
ately and in detail. 1 will endeavor, in general state- 
ments, to cover all the points that I conceive need any 
special answer. 

THE ADVERSE CRITICISMS 

may be divided into two general classes : (1) Those that 
call in question the truthfulness of the statements, and 
(2) that those that deal with them as substantially true. 

To those who question the veracity of what I have 
stated, I have this to reply, viz., that, with a single ex- 
ception, I had most weighty evidence for every statement 
that I made. In the excepted statement I have since had 
evidence volunteered that makes it certain that what I 
said in that respect had a solid basis in truth. 

At this point I am constrained to answer the only one 
of my critics appearing in print that had the manhood to 
sign his own name. He makes two points : (1) That " hav- 
ing lived in cities in twenty-two states, he never saw any- 
where a larger proportion of modest appearing women 
than in Brockton. " I do not know who would wish to 

*See the letter on page 35 ? 



brockton's perils. 49 

dispute that statement. Certainly I do not. (2) Tie be- 
lieves that the vast majority of Brockton's men and wo- 
men, one hundred to one. are pure and honest. 1 hope 
he is not mistaken, but I can hardly give any great value 
to the assumed knowledge of one who is so constantly on 
the move. A man who has " lived in cities in twenty-two 
states." to say nothing of several cities in one state and 
in, I do not know how many, country places, must have 
been quite a rolling stone and I greatly fear that he may 
not have gathered as much wisdom as he otherwise might. 
Even if he is correct, and one one-hundredth only of our 
30,000 people, viz., 300, are of the class mentioned, such 
a number might form a peril it were well to avoid. The 
writer of the book of Proverbs thought it needful to de- 
pict the character and danger of a single such character. 
There is great peril in one whose steps take hold on hell. 

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT BROCKTON? 

I complimented her highly for her enterprise and the 
multitude of things that go to make up a bright, pushing, 
live, wide-awake city, yet called attention to the danger 
that lies in the very spirit if it be not properly guarded, 
that is thus aroused. I spoke of factory life as produc- 
ing some magnificent specimens of manhood and woman- 
hood, and of being glad that my lot had been cast in this 
factory city of Brockton, yet called attention to certain 
evils that necessarily attend upon a factory life. I spoke 
of the temptations attending the lack of home life and 
influence ; of the drink evil, under remarkable control, 
but still here ; of gambling, and of licentiousness. These 
were my six points. Under the latter head I stated that 
this sin probably prevented the salvation of more souls 
than any other evil. My reasons for this statement I did 
not give, but it was not that I thought it more generally 
prevalent than any other sins, but that I thought that 
those who fell intojthis sin formed theanost hopeless class 
for whom we are called to labor. I may be mistaken, but 
I do not think that we have nearly as much to fear from 
the sin of intemperance, as from the sin of licentiousness 
inUtsJvarious forms. I further stated that the sin was 
largely secret, and hence it was impossible to tell how 
extensive it was, but that there were certain indications, 
•• straws/' which made me believe that the evil was here, 
that even in Brockton it existed in such force as to con- 



50 brockton ? s perils. 

stitute a real peril against which one must need* be on 
his or her guard. Each point that I named I distinctly 
called " a straw/' " another straw/ 7 and so on. Allow 
me to add that I think I found another straw, or straws. 
in the very paper that denied my position, viz., the arrest 
in the ruins of Gardner's block, and the conviction, re- 
ported in the same paper, of two Broctonians f or adultery. 

THE CRITICS CRITICISED. 

One of my critics signs himself, or herself, " 1890." 
As 1800 is still less than two months old, it is fair to sup- 
pose that he meant to have us infer that he was quite 
youthful and not to be blamed for his verdancy. Another 
signs herself i; Truth.'' It is one of the characteristics of 
the real " Truth " that it loves the light. It can only be a 
false " Truth" that hides under a nom de plume. 1 fear 
me that " Charity," who seems so fond of tobacco smoke, 
is also but a masquerader, not understanding that true 
" Charity" that is the greatest of the virtues. Last of all 
comes " A shop girl." God bless the shop girls, and de- 
liver them from all perils. We are pleased to know that 
she is in such a shop. The testimony of the critic who 
privately wrote to me so couterously is added to hers, 
that in some of these shops nothing like vulgarity or inu- 
endo is tolerated. Why should it not be thus in every 
shop ? A\ r e are only sorry to be obliged to affirm, from evi- 
dence that cannot be gainsaid, that at present such is not 
the case. Indeed it has been confessed by some of my 
critics that what I have said is true of at least some of 
the shops of Brockton. I hope this " A shop girl" did 
not hear my sermon, for if she did she would certainly 
lose my respect ; for in that sermon I said that among the 
straws that had come to me was this : A nice appearing 
woman made application to rent a room. She asked if 
she could receive gentlemen. The lady replied " Yes, in 
my parlor." The woman answered, u I want to take them 
to my room and have them stay half the night, or all night 
if they choose." If she heard the sermon, it is this she 
defends. If anybody cares to defend that sort of a 
thing, they are welcome to the task. 

But, on the other hand, it is said, " Granted that the 
facts are as represented, why say anything^about it?" fc u It 
is in shocking taste at the best and a blunder throughout." 
To judge from some of the criticisms, the sin in these 



Brockton's perils. 51 

things would seem to consist, not in the actions, but in 
speaking about them. Is it then so very wrong, or in 

such very bad taste to warn the young of the perils that 
are all about them? when 

SIX IS BRINGING FORTH ITS FRUITAGE OF DEATH, 

is it such an unchristian thing to call the attention of 
those who are imperilled to the results of these evils? It 
is the evil doer that loves darkness rather than light, and 
thinks it is such a shocking thing to have his deeds re- 
proved. Sinners do not like that which reveals their sin. 
It is little wonder. Evidently these things have struck 
home. It is God's way to strip sin of its covering and 
exhibit it in its naked deformity. God knows that there 
is nothing that the sinner dreads more than having his 
sins uncovered. That will be an awful day when these 
men stand uncovered before the judgment seat of Christ. 
2s o wonder that revelation assures us that they •• will call 
on the rocks and the mountains to fall on them and hide 
them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and 
from the wrath of the Lamb." Perhaps you do not believe 
what Jesus has said. So much the worse for you. Every 
word that has been tested has been found true. The rest 
of his words will also be found true. In Him was no 
sin. He did not lie. Let us beware. If we do not want 
the reaping, let us beware of the sowing. Why do we 
show up the evils of intemperance? Why did we, before 
the war, show up the iniquity of slavery? Perhaps our 
critics think it was a great blunder and in shocking taste. 
That was what the South thought. Like these sinners 
here, it asked to be let alone. We do not propose to let 
sin alone. We presume that therein lies the occasion of 
the anger of sin's devotees. 

But ''we should love one another." Well, what does 
love demand? What does it demand of a father or mother 
that knows a child is in mortal peril? Is that love, that 
when my house is on fire comes to me and yet says noth- 
ing about danger? Is that love, that sees me take a pois- 
oned cup and does not warn me of what is therein? Some 
people have 

QUEER NOTIONS ABOUT LOVE. 

They have queer notions about God. Because God is 
love, they think that he must love iniquity and treat the 



02 BROCKTON S PERILS. 

guilty as the righteous. If we were together on board a 
steamer and I found a scoundrel boaring a hole in the bot- 
tom of the vessel, ought I to hold my peace through love 
of the scuttler? Yet the ship of state is endangered, the 
scuttlers abound, and we, forsooth, must not mention the 
fact, for fear that somebody will be offended. 

All! but ; * you should have the meek and lowly spirit 
of him who went about doing good.*" Will the writer of 
that sentence please name the person that ever more scath- 
ingly rebuked and denounced sin than did Jesus Christ. 
the one to whom she evidently refers, but with whose 
character she seems so little acquainted? 

But ''let him that is without sin among you cast the first 
stone." If the writer means to imply that we are all 
guilty of these crimes, then I wish to tell her that there 
are not a few who 

CAX SAFELY THROW STONES. 

She had better learn a little more about that passage, 
then she may not quote it quite so glibly. Let her, if she 
so desires, confess that she is guilty : but let her be careful 
how she includes the rest of us in her confession, lest we 
conclude that her " charity " is a very thin gauze of de- 
ception. 

Our verdant friend. " 1890," asserts that vulgarity and 
profanity are universal vices: that " criticisms on these 
vices are well enough, but the vices are universal and not 
peculiar to any city." Suppose we should grant all he 
has here said, is there not so much the more reason for 
attacking? If what he here asserts is true, the case is 
greatly worse, even in Brockton, than I had supposed. I 
did not think that prof anity was universal, and I certainly 
hoped that vulgarity was the comparative exception. Now 
just put with the above that other assertion of "1890," 
viz., that " the average man of the world carries more 
practical Christianity in his heart, etc.," and you have the 
assertion that this profane, vulgar man of the world, is 
more Christ-like than those who seek in every way to con- 
form their lives to the example of him who was perfect in 
both his life and his teaching, and we need no longer won- 
der that one who could thus write wished to hide himself 
under an anoymous signature. He has good reason to be 
ashamed both of his own name and of his nom deplume. 

My private adverse critic wants to know *• why is it 



Brockton's perils. 53 

any worse to swear or use vulgar language before women 
than before men." There is do place where such language 
is excusable. We all honor Washington and Grant for 
refusing to allow such language to be uttered in their 
presence, but if the barriers between the sexes be broken 
down is not the evil sure to be greatly increased? 

It will not do for me. on this occasion, to so far trespass 
on your patience as to enter into the discussion of the 
questions that have been raised concerning dancing, card- 
playing and theatre-going. It will take too long, but, if 
yon please. I shall be happy next Sunday evening to speak 
on the question of " Amusements," when I shall fake pleas- 
ure in discussing these questions carefully and thought- 
full}", presenting to your mind- what to me are very 
strong reasons for the position assumed concerning these 
things in the discourse of last Sunday evening: the posi- 
tion of this church and of so many Christians. I think I 
shall be able to show you that my convictions are based 
on such reasons as may well make any good man. who 
lias the best welfare of his fellows at heart, hesitate be- 
fore giving to these things the benefit of his influence and 
example. . 

There is, however, one criticism about which I ought 
to say just a word. In my sermon of last Sunday evening 
I did not discuss 

THE TOBACCO QUESTION. 

I made but one solitary allusion to it. That allusion, as 
corrected, was all I said on that point. As originally uns- 
tated, it was one of the things that most stirred the wrath 
of some. What I did say, and what I wish to repeat, is. 
that it seems to me that one must be very low down in 
the scale of courtesy, (mark you I do not say of morality,) 
to smoke in the presence of ladies. It may be the part of 
wisdom for the wife to submit quietly to the lack of 
courtesy in this, as she may be obliged to do in other re- 
spects, but that does not alter the lack of courtesy. God 
pity the man that is not courteous to his own wife. To 
many women few things are more offensive than the 
fumes of tobacco. Some are nauseated, others disgusted 
by it. and yet men will smoke in the presence of wives 
thus affected and brutally tell them if they do not like it 
r out. I submit without argument the question 
whether that is courteous, noble, grand, manly? AYere 



Q± BROCKTON'S PERILS.' 

there time I should be glad to say more on this point, but 
I must close. 

In closing, let me again remind you of the teachings of 
the text, viz., that " Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap. That he that sows to the flesh shall of the 
flesh reap corruption, while only he who sows to the spirit 
reaps life everlasting. To the one or the other you are 
sowing. To one or the other every man and woman is 
sowing. Which is it in your case ? Are you sowing to the 
spirit, or are you sowing to the flesh? Do not "deceive 
yourselves ; God is not mocked, but whatsoever you sow 
that shall you also reap. 



This sermon, like the first, was followed by a second 
meeting. The responses by the people were very hearty, 
showing that they were earnestly with their pastor in this 
contest. 

Privately many kindly things were said by those who 
were not members of the church and congregation. For 
example, a member of the Porter Congregational church, 
an elderly gentleman of character, said, " Mr. Richard- 
son, the only trouble is that what you have said is too 
true. 7 ' A member of another church said: " Remember 
it is the tree that bears good fruit that gets clubbed. " 



The Monday morning edition of the Boston Globe and 
Boston Herald had long reports that had been wired to 
them immediately on the close of the sermon. Monday 
afternoon both the local papers came out with a full re- 
port of the sermon. The Xew York World copied the 
Globe report in full and published it as its own. Other 
papers caught it up and so it was scattered far and wide. 



BROCKTON S PERILS. 

X. 
KEY. F. A. AYARFIELD'S SERMON. 



In the Enterprise of the same date there was also re- 
ported a sermon by the Rev. F. A. TTarfield, pastor of the 
Porter Congregational church, that played quite an impor- 
tant part in the subsequent controversy. IVe therefore 
give it in full, as reported : 

CHRISTIAN BIGOTS — THEY KEEP MEN EROM THE CHURCH 
AND RETARD ITS GROWTH. 

Before a very large congregation at the Porter church, 
Sunday afternoon, Rev. F. A. Warfield, the pastor, 
delivered a powerful and interesting discourse, which, 
whether so intended or not, was taken as a dignified re- 
ference to the sermon delivered by Rev. J. K. Richardson 
on " Brockton's Perils,'' which has caused so much talk. 

Rev. Mr. Warfield took as his text John iv., 20: " Our 
fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in 
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 
From these words he preached a sermon on Christian 
bigots, taking the ground that they retarded the advance 
of Christianity, and kept men from connecting themselves 
with the church. He said substantially: 

Critical experiences betray traits of character that seem 
antagonistic, and which yet are sometimes conspicuous in 
the same person. Often this versatility is a great addi- 
tion to character; sometimes it is a great defect. Thus 
there are some things which it is hard to reconcile even 
on the ground of expediency. For example, how anyone 
who believes in Christianity — whose last commandment 
is to love one another — can yield to the impulses of bigo- 
try, seems inexx^licable, and yet its prevalence, even 
among those who claim a closeness of walk with Christ, 
cannot be denied, and is at the same time a barrier in the 
path of many, preventing their pursuit of the Christian 
life. The text was selected not at all for the purpose of 



56 brockton's perils. 

discussing the differences between the Jews and Samar- 
ians, to which it relates, but only because it suggests a 
narrowness, a bigotry, that was a serious hindrance to 
their coming together, which indeed accounts for their 
being apart. 

The derivation of the word bigot was explained, the 
conclusion being that it described one who was engaged 
in a work of destruction, and the speaker said that in 
religion the same is true. A bigot is one who worships 
his own creed, and for this reason feels called upon to 
antagonize, and, if possible, destroy all other creeds. In- 
stead of regarding Christianity as broad and comprehen- 
sive, the bigot reduces it all to the compass of his own 
little creed, and therefore seeks not the promotion of the 
spirit of Christianity, which would make men better — 
though it might not make them alike — but rather the in- 
culcation of his own beliefs, which would only make men 
formal, and perhaps narrow. 

BIGOTRY CAN NEVER ADMIT 

that things which differ from each other may both be good, 
while, as the speaker understood the teachings of Christ 
and the New Testament, he desired reformation of indi- 
viduals without insisting upon perfect conformity. Christ 
gave the disciples to understand that men might be equally 
good in character and right in motive while differing from 
each other. The bigoted Christian practically holds there 
are no non-essentials in Christianity, while the great 
teacher himself implied that the essentials of his religion 
w^ere very few and simple. 

The bigotry that appears in the text is widely prevalent 
at the present time. Certain unimportant elements of 
the Christian life are being urged with a persistency 
wholly out of proportion to their prominence. It is not 
uncommon to hear that a man cannot be a Christian with- 
out he adopted a certain mode of baptism, or holds a cer- 
tain view of the atoning work of Christ, or has a definite 
opinion concerning the future life. But concerning these 
and some other points, very little light is shed by the 
teaching of Christ ; certainly no definite statement of the 
Bible can be urged to prove that these are essential. 

No good man of the community will withhold himself 
from Christ, however much he may be repelled by the 
unfortunate displays of Christians. Christians may be 



BROCKTON S PERILS. 57 

narrow; Christ certainly was not. The bigoted person is 
forever pressing' his peculiarities. The}' certainly do not 
strengthen their influence upon the thinking men who are 

undecided as to their attitude toward Christ. They will 
gladly welcome the broad and comprehensive principles 

of Christianity as enunciated by Christ. The speaker 
thought that when the light of eternity breaks upon the 
Christian church they would discover that in contending 

over their little denominational differences they have 
made a great mistake. This world will have more the 
character of heaven when there is 

LESS BIGOTRY AND ZtfORE BREADTH. 

Rev. Mr. Warfield, having spoken as to the mistakes of 
Christians in urging their peculiarities, proceeded to con- 
sider upon what the Christian may wisely insist. First, 
he said, the Christian should insist upon self-control in 
the presence of opposition. Severe denunciation will not 
convince those opposed to us. Some persons are opposed 
to Christianity simply because of the fierceness with which 
they have been assailed. Trying to drive men to Christ 
usually results in driving them from him. When anyone 
urges "the sterner truths of religion he needs an especial 
panoplying of charity and gentleness. 

Secondly, the Christian should insist upon being 
prompted by love for the person of the one lie would 
help. Christ's last commandment, in which he summa- 
rized his religion, was: i; That ye love one another as I 
have loved you." The man who is moved by any other 
spirit misrepresents Christianity. Men bow to the sceptre 
of love when they will not recognize any other force. 
Christ recognized this power. He undertook to conquer 
the world by loving it. He said severe things about bad 
acts and bad men, but he said them in love. To-day we 
can assail with the utmost plainness prevailing evils, and 
the world will never resent it if only breathing through 
every utterance is a fervent and yearning love. Take 
any other course and we open ourselves to the charge of 
being unchristian. 

Thirdly, Christians may and should insist upon the 
gospel in its beautiful purity audits powerful simplicity] 
There is a great deal of so-called gospel preaching that, by 
Xew Testament standards, could^hardly^be recognized as 
such. There are niaiivjylio wish their minister would 
8 



58 brockton's perils. 

preach the gospel, moaning thereby something very differ- 
ent from what I understand to be the gospel. 

They are specially pleased when lie assails dancing, 
card playing, theatre-going, etc., etc., and you will hear 
some say that lie is not afraid to preach a straight gospel. 
He will go for Romanism with a vigor that is unmistak- 
able and a fierceness that is questionable, and they will 
say he has the courage of his convictions and is not afraid 
to preach the gospel without fear or favor. 

Now, dear friends, said the speaker, I have no contro- 
versy with these: but is it not a little stretch of the New 
Testament idea to call this gospel preaching? 

In a single sentence I understand the gospel to mean 
Christ's method of saving men from sin. 

Continuing the preacher said that the soil in which the 
gospel grows is God's love; and, just in proportion as 
men in the spirit of Christ urge upon men his method of 
salvation from sin, gospel preaching will be attended 
with power. That man is a sinner does not admit of 
doubt; that Christ is a Saviour from sin men do not care 
to deny ; that faith in Him and walks with Him are con- 
ditions, is too plain to permit controversy. And this is 
the gospel. No man is required to believe this doctrine 
or that, to accept any pet dogma of any church or sect. 

Rev. Mr. Waiii eld closed by saying that to drive evil 
out of one's mind he should be supplied with larger 
truths. Undue love of the world cannot be driven out by 
ridiculing or criticising it; you must implant that larger 
love which includes God. 



A significant criticism on the above was the remark of 
a business man in the city, a person who makes no pro- 
fession of religion, " No doubt Mr. Warfieldis right and 
God Almighty is wrong." 

The same evening Mr. Warfield, in his public address, 
took occasion to say, that " while one of the pastors in 
the city chose to speak of Brockton's perils, he preferred 
to speak of Brockton's blessings." This remark, brought 
to the author in a somewhat altered form, together with 
the report in the Enterprise, led to the letter and inter- 
view that follows. 



bkockton's perils. 59 



XI. 



LETTER TO REV. F. A. WARFIELD AND 
INTERVIEW. 



Brockton, Feb. 25, 1890. 
Rev. F. A. Warfield, 

Dear Brother:— 

Not wishing to do you any injustice 
in thought or word, I write to ask two or three questions 
which I trust you will answer as speedily as may be, and 
greatly oblige the undersigned: 

(1.) A gentleman present at your Sunday evening ser- 
vice understood you to say that while one minister in 
town might talk about " Brockton's perils/' you thought 
it would be greatly better if he would talk about " Brock- 
ton's blessings." or something to that effect. I would like 
to ask if he understood you correctly. 

(2.) In the report of your afternoon discourse, as given 
in the Enterprise on Monday, you are credited with the 
intention of replying to me, and you were understood to 
include me among the bigots that are hindering the work 
of God. I should like to ask if you meant to be so un- 
derstood? 

(3.) In that same report, you are credited with saying, 
" It is not uncommon to hear that a man cannot be a 
Christian without he adopted a certain mode of baptism, 
etc.'' Is that statement, and the rest of the brief para- 
graph, substantially as you uttered it? 

(4.) Does the paragraph concerning dancing, etc., and 
Romanism, correctly represent what you said? 

I beg pardon for troubling you, but it is undertsood 
that you have purposely put yourself into opposition to 
the work I am trying to do, which, at the present time, is 
specially aimed at the sins that I believe to be periling 
souls among us, especially licentiousness. I trust that 
you have been misunderstood, but, whether you have or 
not. I -hall be pleased to hear from you directly. 
Very respectfully, 

Justix K. Richardson. 



(30 UROCKTON'S PERILS. 



THE INTER VIEW 



Mr. Warfield soon after called on the author, saying 
that the expression, " lest I should do you any injustice 
in thought or word,-' had led him to think that lie "would 
rather talk than write. He said, in substance : " I did not 
say what was reported to you concerning' xlw expression in 
the evening discourse. What I did say was this: While 
one of Brockton's pastors chooses to speak on its perils, I 
prefer to talk of its blessings.' 4 ' 

" So far as the report of the sermon is concerned, I will 
say this much, and it is all I care to say: When I heard, 
or saw, the report of your sermon on ; Brockton's perils,' 
I made up my mind that I would preach on * Brockton's 
blessings.' I accordingly prepared a sermon under that 
title. I then saw your announcement that you would re- 
ply to your critics, and thought I would not deliver my 
sermon on Brockton's Blessings till you were through. I 
accordingly sat down and wrote this discourse on Chris- 
tian Bigots. After delivering it on Sunday, a reporter 
from the Enterprise asked for my manuscript. As I was 
about to give it to him, he remarked that it was ' a good 
reply to Pastor Richardson.' I drew back, saying that 
I did not intend to have it taken that way. lie said, " That 
is all right," and I gave him the manuscript. When the 
report of the sermon came out, I found that the editor had 
said that, ' whether so intended or not, it was understood 
to be a reply to Mr. Richardson,' but I did not so intend 
it. Bo far as your other questions are concerned, 1 do 
not care to say anything save that the report was taken 
from my manuscript. I will say, however, that in my 
reference to Romanism I had specially in mind the fact 
that Dr. Lansing was to lecture here on our prayer-meet- 
ing night and I do protest against that.* 7 

In the conversation that followed, I said to Mr. Warlield 
that I supposed he understood perfectly that this was 
really a fight against licentiousness, and that he was com- 
monly understood to have taken up on the other side. He 
replied that every man must do as he thought best. I said, 
**You think I have made a mistake in attacking these sins." 
He replied, I should not do so myself. Where do you find 
any epistle devoted to such sins?" Then he added, "I 
speak of them in a certain way in my discourses, but I 
should never think of making a discourse on such mat- 
ters." 



brockton's perils. 61 

Tie further said that while I had criticised the fact that 
the paper had not been complained of for reporting* the 
things for which they found so much fault in the utter- 
rance from the pulpit, he desired me to know that he had 
criticised the paper for it: that he went to them and told 
them, laughingly to be sure, that if they were going to 
print such stuff lie did not want the paper, and that, as a 
matter of fact, he was " ashamed to have his daughter see 
the report of that sermon on Brocktoirs Perils. " 

The above is, I think, the substance of the entire con- 
versation. Some parts of the interview were very sur- 
prising to the author, especially the last remark. 



62 brockton ? s perils. 

XII. 

FURTHER CRITICISMS. 



The Enterprise, in the same number that contained the 
report of this first reply, had two editorials in regard to 
the matter. They were as follows: 

Pastor Richardson's "corrections" of our report of that 
sermon, when sifted down, would seem to show that our 
description of the garments in which it was clothed was 
substantially truthful, but the color of two or three of the 
buttons was not exactly right. 

We devote considerable space to-day to a report of Rev. 
Mr. Richardson's reply to the critics who disagreed with 
his conclusions as to " Brockton's Perils. " To-day's re- 
port was taken by an Enterprise reporter, and then Mr. 
Richardson's manuscript was obtained and the two com- 
pared. There was hardly a word to alter in the reporter's 
copy. 

We shall not take issue with the clergyman in his stric- 
tures upon the Enterprise. He is doubtless sincere in his 
opinions, and we will not quarrel with hini'on that score. 
Lots of people do not like the newspapers — but they read 
them. 

But there is one point upon which we must take issue 
with him. He asks why, if it was wrong for him to say 
the things he said in his sermon, it was not wrong for the 
Enterprise to print them. It is a newspaper's province 
to print news, or whatever in its judgment will interest 
its readers. It is expected to do this, and just in propor- 
tion as it does so does it enjoy public favor and esteem. 
It reports wrong-doings ; but who would hold that it did 
wrong in so doing? It reports disasters; but would it be 
right to hold it in any degree responsible for them ? It 
reports conflagrations ; would any sensible man suspect it 
therefore of applying the torch?* It reports deaths; but 
surely it does not necessarily participate in taking life. 



brockton's perils. 63 

It reports what men have said on the platform, at public 
assemblies or in the pulpit: yet we never knew any but 
our reverend friend to question the propriety of giving 
such utterances the wider publicity of its circulation. 

Mr. Richardson admits that he has heard no one criti- 
cise the Enterprise for printing' the report of his sermon. 
The reason is plain. There was no occasion or possible 
excuse for criticising it. 

Concerning the short-hand matter there was an amusing 
passage between the papers. The following was from 
the Gazette of Tuesday: 

We are almost tempted to u give the snap away" as to 
the u short hand " report of Pastor Richardson's Sunday 
night address by our contemporary, and only professional 
courtesy and brotherly love restrains us. We will only 
inquire how it happened that Mr. Richardson's manu- 
script was not returned at the hour promised, such prom- 
ise being the sole condition on which it was obtained. 
However, the Gazette contained a full and accurate re- 
port of this interesting discourse. 

To the above the Enterprise the next day made answer 
as follows : 

What some people don't know would till a big book, 
and one of the things the Gazette doesn't happen to know 
is anything at all concerning this particular case. The 
sermon w^as taken down in short-hand and written out 
from his notes by Mr. Lindsay of this office, who had 
been directed to secure Mr. Richardson's manuscript, if 
he had any, for comparison with his report. Monday 
morning the editor kept this manuscript until he had an 
opportunity of making the comparison, and returned it 
as soon as he had got through with it. 

One of " Brockton's Perils " appears to be the faculty 
our contemporary has for finding holes and then tumbling 
into them. 

The Gazette rejoined : 

Since the Enterprise challenges a statement of facts as 
to its •• short hand" report of Pastor Richardson's Sun- 
day night sermon, we will summarise them : Said reporter 
publicly stated that he was out of practice, had done the 
best he could, could not follow the speaker closely but 



04 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

was " all right " because he had the manuscript. Said 
reporter promised on his honor that the manuscript should 
he returned to its author on or before 7 Monday morning. 
The manuscript had not been returned at 9 o'clock that 
morning-. These facts fill up " the hole" so completely 
that there is no room therein for the Gazette. 

The facts of the case were that the author had agreed 
to give the Gazette a full report which he could not pre- 
pare till early Monday morning. The Enterprise reporter 
came to him saying that if he could have the manuscript, as 
he desired, he would not depend on his short hand but on 
the manuscript. The author agreed to let him take it on 
condition, and only on that condition, that he could be sure 
to have it by 7 o'clock the next morning so as to make the 
report for the Gazette which was needed by 9 o'clock. He 
was promised thrice over that it should be so. The manu- 
script did not come at the appointed time and the author 
was obliged to make the report from memory. As to 
Mr. Lindsay's reporting it, we are willing to accept the 
statement of the Enterprise that he did so, but this was 
not the man that made the report of the first sermon. 

Later the Gaztete had the following note : 

Our contemporary does not attempt to deny our state- 
ments as to its report of Pastor Richardson's sermon and 
use of his manuscript. 

The Gazette also had the following : 

Here is real news from Tuesday's New Bedford Stand- 
ard, although no one in Brockton dreamed such a blood 
thirsty crusade had been inaugurated. " The clergymen 
of Brockton are indignant, as well as the people, over 
Rev. J. K. Richardson's recent sermon at the First Baptist 
church, which has caused such a sensation. The sermon 
was the outcome of a crusade held by Rev. J. D. Fulton 
against Romanism Catholicism, and there is a prospect of 
a lively controversy between the several ministers. A 
majority of the clergymen are bitterly opposed to the 
anti-Romanist movement which is being inaugurated in 
Brockton, and do not hesitate in denouncing it from their 
pulpits." 



Brockton's perils. 65 

The above was very likely a condensation of a special 
dispatch that appeared in the Boston Herald, which was 
as follows : 

Brocktox. Feb. 24. 1890. A fortnight ago Rev. Justin 
D. Fulton held one of his anti-Romanist crusades at the 
First Baptist church in this city, and at its conclusion the 
pastor of the church. Rev. J. K. Richardson, preached a 
remarkable sermon on " Brockton's Perils." which caused 
the greatest sensation for years. In the sermon Brock- 
ton's alledged faults were depicted in glowing language, 
wounding the feelings of many and causing general con- 
demnation. The sermon was published quite fully in one 
of the local papers, and thereby readied the public, who 
criticised the remarks with unsparing hand. The result 
of all was the pastor claimed he was misrepresented, but, 
in the main, did not deny what he said: last night he 
preached to a crowded house, and made reply to his critics, 
in which he reiterated many of his statements, and char- 
acterized the criticisms as objections raised to the Baptist 
church. The other clergymen in the city are highly indig- 
nant at the sermon preached a week ago. Rev. F. A. 
Trarfield of the Porter Congregational church, in speak- 
ing of the gospel of the day, said what could be taken as 
a reply to Rev. Mr. Richardson's remarks. He said : ''The 
bigotry that appears in the text is widely prevalent at the 
present time. This world will have more the character 
of heaven when there is less bigotry and more breadth. 
Christians should insist on the gospel being preached in 
its powerful simplicity. There is a great deal of so-called 
gospel preaching that by the Xew Testament standard 
could hardly be recognized as such. They are especially 
pleased when the clergymen assails dancing, card-playing 
and theatre-going, and you will hear some say that he is 
not afraid to preach the straight gospel. He will go for 
Romanism with a vigor that is unmistakable and a fierce- 
ness that is questionable, and they will say he has the 
courage of his convictions and is not afraid to preach the 
gospel without fear or favor. 1 have no controversy with 
these, but is it not a little stretch of the Xew Testament 
idea to call this gospel preaching ?" Just at present there 
is a prospect of a lively controversy between the several 
ministers. A majority of the clergymen are bitterly 
opposed to the anti-Romanist movement which is being 
9 



6G brockton's perils. 

inaugurated in this city, and do nor hesitate in denouncing 
it from their pulpits. 

Further on we shall see something of the attitude of 
the other ministers in the city. 

The following items appeared in the. Enterprise during 
the week: 

Bad news travels fast. The New York World, which 
has the largest circulation of any paper in the country, 
has been inspired to reprint from the Globe the report of 
what Rev. Mr. Richardson said last Sunday to the effect 
that Brockton is not heaven and that there is so much that 
is evil in the community. Our city lias obtained some 
celebrity before this, but not of that character. 

This Globe report, which occupied nearly ten inches of 
solid tine print, was a very good one, considering how 
much it was condensed. 

Another squib in the Gazette read as follows: 

The Brockton correspondent of the Sunday Herald 
says Pastor Richardson's sermon, last week Sunday eve- 
ning, was a u mild apology " for the one of the Sunday 
evening before. That will be news to Mr. Richardson 
and to those who heard the latter. " Johnnie, get your 
gun." 

Later in the week the Enterprise had this announce- 
ment : 

Communications on Pastor Richardson's sermon con- 
tinue to be received. It seems to us that it has received 
all the criticism it merits, and that those already published 
sufficiently indicate the people's estimation of it. 

The Enterprise also sent a letter to each of the other 
clergymen, calling attention to the author's sermon and 
asking if they^had been correctly or incorrectly reported. 
The ministers, in their replies were very courteous and 
commendatory. TTe take the following from the letter 
of Rev. James Graham Brooks, of the Unitarian church: 
" It seems ungracious to answer your questions about 
' reporting' other than favorably. I cannot, however, 
tell the truth and at the same time call the average report- 
ing of the Enterprise good/' 



brockton ? s perils. 67 

During the week the following letter wa- received from 
a gentleman in the city who signed his full name. Ave give 
it without the name. 

Brockton, Feb. 26, 1890. 
Rev. J. Tv. Richardson, 

Dear Sir: — 

Your recent sermon on Brockton's 
Perils seems to have aroused the city from center to cir- 
cumference. Wishing to say a few words on the subject, 
and believing that the papers have already received too 
many communications on this matter. I deem it better to 
address myself directly to you. 

I had not the pleasure of listening to your first lecture 
and for that reason, if for no other. I do not consider 
myself competent to criticise it. But the statements of 
the press in regard to it created in my mind an unfavora- 
ble impression. I attended your church last Sunday eve- 
ning in a state of mind antagonistic to yourself, i ex- 
pected to listen to a discourse condemnatory of Brockton 
and consigning its inhabitants to that abyss of torture 
where they lie and burn forever. I expected to hear her 
factories condemned as schools of vice and ignorance. 
and the workers in these factories as foul ulcers upon the 
body of society. I think I was 

JUSTIFTED IX MY EXPECT ATIOXS 

by the reports which I had heard and read. But what 
did I hear instead? I heard arguments that I knew were 
unanswerable. Statements that 1 knew were true. I 
heard the honest utterances of a man who had the courage 
of his convictions. I heard the critics answered fearlessly 
though kindly, sharply yet justly. And who are these 
anonymous critics, these stahbers in the dark? "Brockton 
is not heaven," and such as these are not 

THE AXoELS THEREOF. 

Well, to use a homely phrase. I came away •• without a 
Wg to stand on." and " the greatest effort of of my life " 
that I intended to publish, (not anonymously), remains 
unwritten. The truth is mighty and will prevail. I feel 
like doffing my hat whenever I meet it. 

In conclusion let me say. that while we may differ in 
matters of religion, yet upon the high plane of honest 
endeavor we can breathe the rarified atmosphere of truth. 



68 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

Than king you for your patience in reading this com- 
munication from an obscure and uneducated shoemaker , 
I have the honor to reman, 

Yours respectfully, (Signed) 

Among the clippings from the Boston and New York 
papers the author finds the following, which by some over- 
sight was not credited to its source when it was cut out: 

MR. RICHARDSON AND HIS CRITICS. 

Rev. J. K. Richardson of the First Baptist church is 
making quite a local reputation for himself and his church. 
Two weeks ago he talked on " Brockton's Perils ?? so very 
plainly, not to say strongly, that the local papers were 
flooded with angry communications from people anxious 
to fight for the good name and fair fame of the town. 
There was such an indignant protest that it could not be 
ignored, and the preacher announced that he would answer 
his critics last Sunday. The discussion had waxed so warm 
that the small church was crowded long before the service 
commenced. If this kind of advertising is to be continued 
the authorities should oblige this society to construct 
another entrance to the church, for the present one would 
be very dangerous in times of excitement. This is one of 
Brockton's perils. 

Before one of the largest audiences ever gathered in 
that church, Mr. Richardson answered his critics, and 
announced that he should talk on dancing, card-playing 
and theatre-going, March 2. 

While it is true that there are many " perils " in this 
city, the people seem disposed to resent the insinuation 
that Brockton is a wicked place. Crimes are committed 
here, but the proportion of criminals is light when com- 
pared with very many other manufacturing cities. Our 
people are well behaved, orderly and respectable, and the 
fact that some of them drink liquor or smoke in the pres- 
ence of ladies does not give cause for the sweeping asser- 
tion that it is a common practice. Our churches are well 
filled on the Sabbath, and our ministers, as a class, try to 
coax rather than frighten their hearers into a better and 
purer life. When a man dares to attack Brockton or 
Brockton's morality there is a oneness of feeling among 
her 30,000 people that causes them to rise up and deny the 
statements, and when any one casts a doubt on the state- 
ment that " the pure outnumber the wicked 100 to one," 
he is not making friends in Brockton. 



brockton's perils. 69 

XIII. 

SECOND REPLY. 



BIGOTRY, AMUSEMENTS, CARD-PLAYING: IS THE POSITION 

OF THIS CHURCH ONE OF PREJUDICE OR OF SOUND 

JUDGMENT ? 



'They have healed also the hurt of the (laughter of my people slightly, 
saying," peace, peace ; when there is no peace. Thus" saith the Lord, 
stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good 
way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." 

Jeremiah, 6:14-16. 



(Sunday evening, March 2, 1890. was ushered in with 
a terrible snow-storm. Hardly any one thought that the 
sermon announced would be delivered but many came, 
fearing they might miss it otherwise. So many were 
present it was thought best to go on, only the preacher 
stopped with his treatment of card-playing, when other- 
wise he might have condensed into one, this and the fol- 
lowing sermon. The following is the sermon as de- 
livered:) 



The setting of the text is a sad one. It is similar to 
another drawn by the prophet Ezekiel in the thirteenth 
chapter of his prophecy, where some of the prophets are 
represented as leading astray the people of God, " saying 
peace, peace, when there was no peace;' 7 where one built 
a wall and others daubed it with untempered morter and 
God's anger was kindled against such, even those that saw 
visions of peace when there was no peace. So here, in 
this prophecy of Jeremiah, the Lord warns against cer- 
tain prophets who set themselves against the message from 
God, " crying peace, peace, when there is no peace." 
against men who ouo-ht to be ashamed of themselves but 



70 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

are not, and then he bids the people, instead of being mis- 
led, or even running the risk of being misled, to look for 
the old paths, the good way, and to walk therein. To 
that warning from God, many of the people replied " we 
will not walk therein." Still it was Jeremiah's as it was 
EzekieFs business to speak God's word, whether men 
would hear or forbear, for thus only could they clear 
their own skirts of guilt. 

And yet it would have been pleasanter for Jeremiah to 
have spoken the things that pleased the people. The peo- 
ple were the same that God describes in his prophecy of 
Isaiah (xxx. 10,) " a people that said to the seers see not: 
and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things: 
speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits." 

NOT WILLING TO HEAR THE TRUTH. 

God pity the people that is not willing to hear the truth. 
God pity the ministry that will smooth down its message 
to please sinful men. When I was pastor of the old Cen- 
tral Square Church, East Boston, there was a man in that 
portion of the city of Boston that w as seriously ill. They 
called in a so-called " Christian scientist. " That " doctor" 
bade the sick man think no more about his disease, but to 
think about health: to turn his attention from his perils 
to his blessings. The sick man followed the advice of his 
very pleasing physician. Somehow he did not get well, 
but rather grew worse. Finally he sent for one of Bos- 
ton's most skillful physicians and surgeons, II. J. P. Good- 
win, M. D. When Dr. Goodwin had examined the man, 
he found himself obliged to say to him that his case was 
a very simple one in its earlier stages ; that all that would 
have been needed was to have opened into the ulceration 
and given the pus an opportunity to escape, but that now 
the pus had been absorbed into his system until blood 
poisoning had ensued and it was too late. The man died 
soon after. His would be physician had prophesied to 
him smooth things, he had spoken that which was pleas- 
ant to his ears, he had caused him to look away from his 
peril . It had proved a fatal error. Ho w such a physician 
could ever forgive himself I know not. The business of 
the physician is not to please people but to cure them. 

Of course it is not pleasant to say disagreeable things. 
As a matter of his own personal pleasure, any man would 
prefer to speak of those things that natter the ears of his 



bkockton's perils. 71 

hearers, of the blessings rather than of the perils: but the 
question is not altogether one of what pleases either the 
speaker or the hearer. No one dreams that John the Bap- 
tist took pleasure in rebuking the sin of Herod. Like 
many a Baptist since, lie suffered for his great plainness 
of speech, and it is hardly to be doubted that some of the 
popular religious teachers, as well as other good men of 
his day, thought him very unwise and honestly believed 
that it would have been far better if John, who had al- 
ready won the profound respect of Herod, could have 
talked about the blessings that had come to the Jews un- 
der Herod's administration, rather than the perils arising 
from his sinful life. How much better, at least how much 
pleasanter, it might have been for Luther if he could have 
dwelt on the blessings of his times and conviently ignored 
the penis. Erasmus did that. Erasmus was tli3 man who 
ought to have been the great man of that age. In many 
things he was the superior of Lather, but ere long it was 
true, as another has said, that " while the world and God 
honored Luther, every goose hissed at Erasmus." Luther 
was a bigot ; Erasmus was a liberalist. Luther was as 
narrow, as deep and as powerful as the Niagara; Eras- 
mus as broad, as flat and as powerless as a stagnant lagoon 
in summer. 

What is the difference between a mere politician and a 
statesman ? The one seeks the good will and present favor 
of the people by saying whatever he thinks will tickle 
their ears and curry their favor, the other addresses him- 
self to the mighty questions which the nation must face. 
The one is always ready to talk about the nation's bless- 
ings, the other is also ready to consider the nation's perils. 

When Charles Sumner stood forth in the nation's capi- 
tal and unfolded "the barbarities of slavery," he was 
struck down by those who were determined to uphold 
slavery at all hazards. Many a wiseacre at home thought 
it would have been greatly better if Mr. Sumner had been 
more discreet. They did not believe in such exhibitions 
of bigotry. It only tended to sour the south and make 
them more intensely antagonistic. Men should be broader 
minded and have greater liberality of thought and ex- 
pression. Fortunate indeed was it for the nation that not 
all men were of that sort. Fortunate was it for the nation 
that it had its Sumners who dared speak out and dared 
attack its threatening evils. It was a fortunate thing that 



72 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

there were statesmen ; men who would not truckle to 
please the mob. 

That is an interesting Sunday School lesson that we have 
studied to-day. Jesus goes back to his home in Nazareth 
and preaches in the synagogue. At first all are pleased 
with the gracious message, but presently they begin to 
get angry and before the sermon is, ended they rise up 
and endeavor to kill him. Why? because he turned from 
the blessings to the perils of Nazareth. While he spoke 
of the blessings, they listened and were pleased, but like 
some more modern places, the people did not like to have 
a man talk about the perils of that place. 

What a curious Bible ours would become if some one 
should go through it and strike out all its threat eiiings, 
strike out all that it has to say about perils. Why not "do 
that? It would be far more acceptable to the natural heart. 
A famous liberalist in the city of Boston, a few years 
ago, said in substance, that it was " the threatenings that 
repelled men. That to talk about a God angry with the 
wicked every day, to talk about a hell for impenitent sin- 
ners, drove them from the gospel." Very likely. Yet 
that is 

THE WAY OF THE BIBLE. 

That is God- s way. The blessings are set forth, set forth 
as they are nowhere else, but over against them are placed 
the perils, Ebal against Gerizim, the mount of cursing 
against the mount of blessing. I open my Bible and I 
find that almost its first word to the human race is an 
announcement of peril. I move on and I am confronted 
with peril after peril . The history is largely an unveiling 
of perils. The prophecies are sometimes little else than 
longer or shorter discourses on the perils of the times, 
shown up with utmost plainness. The Old Testament thus 
closes and the new open amid new perils. Open the New 
Testament and hear the Lord Jesus talk of the perils that 
then beset men, warning them of their danger in language 
such as no other man ever used. u Woe unto you scribes 
and pharisees, hypocrites ; ye serpents, ye generation of 
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 77 And 
as the New Testament moves on, it is warning upon warn- 
ing. It closes in that terrible assertion of peril, " If any 
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him 
the plagues that are written in this book ; and if any man 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. IS 

shall lake away from the words of the book of this proph- 
ecy, God shall rake away his part out of the book of life, 
and out of the holy city, and from the things which are 
written in this book." It is a serious matter to alter the 
message from God. It is not our business to alter it but 
to stand for it as it has been once for all delivered, con- 
tending- earnestly therefor. If that is bigotry, it is the 
bigotry of C4od and of his Word; It is the bigotry of 
Jesus Christ himself, of him by whom we must all shortly 
be judged. Paul, in 1 Cor. 4:3, tells us that with him it 
is a very small thing that he is judged of them, or of man's 
judgment, and that altho he is reviled and defamed and 
counted as tilth and as the offscouring of all things, yet 
having the approval of God he is satisfied. However 
much the minister may enjoy speaking smooth things, 
things that the people like 10 hear, it is a question how he 
can do only this and be loyal to his commission. If I at 
all rightly conceive the business of the Christian minister, 
it is to warn the people of all perils and to seek to lead them 
through the one strait gate, in the one narrow way that 
leads to life, whether they are pleased or displeased. 
Preaching is not. as some seem to conceive it, a sort of 
Sunday entertainment. It is the bringing' home of the 
word of God to bear on each soul, as nearly as possible 
according to each soul's need. The truth is indeed to be 
spoken, in Jove, but it is to be sjjoken nevertheless. 

YOU CANNOT REBUKE SIX AND PLEASE THE SIXXERS. 

Men may think that thus spoken it will always be well 
received, but there is no way to rebuke Herod for his sin 
so that it will please him. There is no way for Jesus to 
unveil the hypocrisy around him without offending the 
hypocrites. There was no way to attack slavery and please 
the slaveholders. There is no way to unveil the perils of 
gambling and the sins that many seem to think should in 
no way be mentioned to ears polite, without angering 
those who love and are bound to practice those sins. Hu- 
man nature is the same to-day that it has ever been. You 
can talk about sin in glittering generalities, you can attack 
sins of which those to whom you speak are not guilty. 
and carry the approval of all with you. but when Xathan 
turns on David with a " Thou art the man," David will 
either be brought to immediate repentance or Xathan will 
get into trouble. When Hicaiah speaks the word of the 
10 * 



74 brockton's perils. 

Lord, Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah smites liim and the 
king- puts him in prison and feeds him on the bread and 
water of affliction, while the false prophets who say what 
the king desires to have said, are flattered and honored, 
until the king falls by the very peril Micaiah had exposed, 
and that the king and his prophets had ignored. 

In my sermon on " Brockton's perils," I had occasion 
to treat of certain forms or classes, of amusements, as 
being in their nature so closely associated witli one or 
other of the perils to which attention was called, as to 
make a warning concerning them a matter of importance. 
It is a well recognized fact that in dealing with the drink 
evil it has become necessary to warn against the earlier 
forms of sipping wine, or of doing anything calculated to 
arouse and stimulate a taste that may by and by become 
a tyrant mastering the man. The point of view from 
which I considered the amusements named in that dis- 
course, was precisely similar. I called attention to the 
fact that there were in men 

THREE TERRIBLE APPETITES OR PASSIONS 

which needed to be specially guarded against: drink, 
gambling, licentiousness. Under the head of gambling I 
treated of cards, as a game likely to foster that passion. 
I treated of dancing and theatre-going' as tending* to 
arouse the other dangerous passion. It was from this 
standpoint that I dealt with them, it is from this stand- 
point that what I said ought to be judged. I did not, in 
that discourse, rise to what I might call the Christian or 
religious argument, but dealt with it purely as a moral 
question in which every good man and women is, or 
ought to be, deeply interested. There are things that 
may not be sinful in and of themselves and yet may so 
pave the way to sin as to become worthy at least of sus- 
picion. There are many of the customs of good society 
that it may be no special sin to break over, and yet they 
may be customs that are intended to be safeguards of vir- 
tue and, if so, it is certainly unwise to step over them, or 
to permit such overstepping. 

Let me not be misunderstood to-night, for no man is 
more fully aware than am I, of the tremendous predju- 
dice I am likely to encounter in what I have yet to say. 
Prejudices so great that I may not have due weight given 
to the facts that I present. 



BROCKTON S PERILS. 7u 

I wish it to be understood, first of all. thai I am 

NOT OPPOSED TO AMUSEMENTS. 

On the contrary I belive in amusements. I enjoy seeing 

the children at play. I enjoy seeing a Christian boy and 
girl in the enjoyment of recreation. I am fond of it my- 
self. I believe that k * all work and no play makes Jack a 
dull boy. v I believe that the bow that is never relaxed 
may become permanently bent. 1 believe that God made 
us to be joyful and happy, creatures capable of laughter 
and song. I do not believe that there is a happier man 
or happier family in this world than myself and mine. 
And yet I am not unaware that 

TEMPTATION ALWAYS COMES ALONG THE LINES OF 
PLEAS ERE. OF SELF-GRATIFICATION. 

It would be strange indeed therefore if there did not 
lurk temptation within the folds of at least some of the 
amusements of this world. 

The practical questions that I ask myself, therefore are 
such as these : How shall I distinguish the good from the 
bad. how draw the line between that which is safe and 
that which is unsafe? 

Xow it seems to me that there are 

TWO PRINCIPLES 

That can be safely laid down as guides to the solutions 
of all such questions : 

1. Amusement should serve its legitimate purpose of 
recreation. But what is recreation? It is re-creating. It 
is renewing. It is refitting. It is putting the man into 
better condition to do the work God has committed to his 
hands. Here is the child in school. He cannot to advan- 
tage keep his eyes and mind steadily on his book. It is 
cruelty to require it of him. The teacher stops, throws 
open the windows, calls him up for a short gymnastic 
exercise. The blood that has been centering in the brain 
is drawn away and sent coursing with new vigor through 
the limbs. In a very few minutes a great change in the 
child takes place. He has been renewed in vigor and fit- 
ness for his work. That is recreation : that is proper 
amusement. But suppose the child is kept at that exercise 
hour after hour, or is put at something unfit for this pur- 
pose, in that way he may become too exhausted to study , 



76 brockton's perils. 

and, instead of recreation, we have dissipation. That is 
the first point to be lixed. Only those amusements are 
proper which serve the purpose of recreation* and only 
within the limits in which they accomplish that purpose. 
The next principle that I think can be laid down with 
equal confidence, is this: 

2. The historical principle applies in the sphere of 
amusements, or recreations, as well as elsewhere. 

I mean this: that it will not do to assert that all amuse- 
ments are alike, any more than it will do to assert that all 
persons are alike, or that all hooks are alike. 

Men will sometimes thoughtlessly say. "if you object 
to one game why not object to all? If you object to one 
form of amusement, why not to all?" The answer is this: 
Because we apply the historical principle. What do I 
mean by the historical principle? Simply this: That we 
are willing and choose to take each amusement by itself 
and let it stand or fall on its own merits, as shown in its 
own history. Two men come to me. I look them up. 
On their past records I am willing' to take one into my 
confidence, and on the same ground I am utterly unwill- 
ing to receive the other. I have simply applied the his- 
torical principle. 

In the case of amusements, how shall the principle be 
applied? Look at the record that the amusement has 
made. Look at what has been its practical effects. If 
they have been substantially good, receive them ; if they 
have been found dangerous to men, refuse them. Surely 
there is no need of perilling anybody's soul merely for 
recreation. There are surely a thousand safe ways of 
recreation at command. We will not foolishly run risks 
either for ourselves or others. 

Looking at the vast multitude of amusements we find, 
as a matter of fact, a very few, and only 

A FEW CHALLENGED. 

Why? Why is it that out of the many only a very few. 
chiefly the three of which I am specially to speak, are 
challenged? There must be some reason for it, and that 
reason every thoughtful man should wish to know. If a 
tramp conies to town and I telegraph to find out about 
him and receive answer that he is a suspicious character. 
I shall not receive him into my friendship until I have at 
least thoroughly investigated the reasons for the reputa- 



BROCKTON S PERILS. i i 

tioii that he bears. If I find that a certain man in the 

community bears a bad reputation in any respect, I am 
bound to look Mm up carefully before I take him into my 

confidence and put myself in his power. These are the 
A. B, Cs. of sound wisdom. Here are certain forms of 
amusements, looked upon with great suspicion by many 
of the best men and women in the world. It may be that 
they have been able to get recommendations from other 
good men. Recommendations are sometimes given quite 
easily and with but little real knowledge, but when good 
men and true, when many, among the best people in the 
world, do look with suspicion, not to use any stronger 
word, on a certain amusement, it becomes the part of 
every one interested in good morals, to say nothing at all 
about religion, to at least inquire carefully into the rea- 
sons, before accepting and using that which only serves a 
purpose that can be served equally well by other and un- 
questionable means. The question at issue is this: are 
the amusements objected to so commonly among Christian 
men and women dangerous, or have these people fallen 
into error concerning them? Are these people prejudiced 
and bigoted, or are they acting on reasons? To bring the 
question down to the special form of amusement that I 
wish first of all to discuss, why is it that good men and 
women, in the church and in the world, for it is not to be 
overlooked that the opposition to these things is by no 
means confined to the church, why is it that these people 
object to 



I presume that most business men, if they knew that a 
clerk was in the habit of playing cards, would think it so 
far a cause of suspicion that they would wish to keep a 
pretty strict watch on that particular clerk. I know not 
how it may be to-day. but in my army life I found this 
game, and this game only forbidden. The prohibition, like 
many other laws, was not very rigidly enforced, especially 
where the powers that'should have enforced the law were 
themselves inclined to break it, but it is an interesting ques- 
tion why men should be suspicious of this game, suspicious 
of a man who is an habitual devotee of the game. It is an 
interesting question why military authority should be ex- 
ercised against one game and not against another. To this 
question I have given, first and last, no little study. I 



78 BROCKTON ? S PERILS. 

was unwilling to condemn any game without some good 
reason. While its bad name might alone be a sufficient 
reason why I would not participate in it, yet it was not a 
sufficient reason for me to rest entirely satisfied about it. 
When I entered the army, I w T as fully determined that as 
for myself, I would never play the game, and it is a pleas- 
ure to me that I never have done so, but I was not decided 
in my antagonism toward others playing, provided they 
did not play for money or valuables. Accordingly I 
winked at the play of cards for pastime. Young men 
whom I had enlisted, said they wanted to play just to pass 
away the time : that they would not on any account con- 
sent to gamble, etc. I said to myself, it is little enough 
of comfort that these boys have, if they can get any in 
that way, I will not interfere if I can help it. I had great 
confidence in many of these boys. They had come from 
homes and families that I knew well. I trusted them. 
What was the result? There came a time when we found 
that just after a pay-day every man in the company who 
had learned to play cards had lost all or nearly all of his 
pay. This led to the enforcement of the regulation against 
card-playing and to a study into card-playing on my own 
part. The result of that study, which has been steadily 
confirmed by a subsequent experience of many years, was 
the conclusion, that somehow 

CARDS TEND TO AROUSE AND STIMULATE THE GAMBLING 
PASSION 

as no other game does. I will not attempt to explain 
why this is so, I simply affirm that I have found this to 
be the experience of a large number of persons who have 
confessed to me its eflect upon themselves. I said in the 
early part of this sermon, as I said in the sermon of two 
weeks ago to-night, that there are three passions in the 
human breast that are likely to prove very dangerous when 
once aroused and that one of these imssions is gambling. 
My first count against card-playing is that it tends, as 
does no other game, so far as I am aware, to arouse the 
gambling passion. I do not say that a man may not play 
cards and never have this passion aroused. On some men 
it seems to have no effect. I have a friend who tells me 
that he used to play cards, but that to him it was always 
such a silly, insipid game that he merely endured it and 
was glad to have done with it. On such a person it might 



brocktox's perils. 79 

have no injurious effect. In such case it becomes more a 
question of example and influence. There are some men 
who seem to receive no injury from a moderate use of 
wine, but it is very certain that to others it is perilous. 
Neither do I mean to say that men do not gamble with 
other means than cards. I do not mean to say that they 
may not use almost anything for that purpose ; but what 
I say is that in cards, as in no other game, there is that 
which in a very great number of cases arouses and stim- 
ulates the passion of gambling. Checkers and chess and 
backgammon, and a multitude of other games, may have 
been sometimes misused in this way, but they have no 
such records as has the game of cards. Coffee and tea and 
lemonade may have been sometimes misused as drinks, 
but they have no such record as has the alcoholic drinks, 
and are not to be held accountable for inflaming the drink 
habit and passion, as is the wine. How did it happen 
that these boys in my company all got to gambling? They 
could not explain it themselves. They seemed surprised 
at and ashamed of themselves, but they knew that some- 
how they had gotten there through card-playing. I know 
that many will say, if these boys had only been brought 
up to play cards and had been carefully trught by their 
parents to abstain from every form of gambling, then 
they would have stood. But I have had no little exper- 
ience among that class. In one of the churches of which 
an intimate friend was pastor, there was just such a fam- 
ily. One of the sons was the clerk of the church. It 
was discovered that he was a gambler. The case was in- 
vestigated. The facts came out. The man made a con- 
fession. He said that having learned at home to play 
cards quite skillfully, on getting out from home he was 
drawn, step by step, into gambling almost before he was 
aware of it, and it had developed in him such a passion 
that he had gone on gambling ever since. It was found 
that the other children of this family had done the same 
thing. I once had occasion to come in conflict with a 
family who took this position very strongly, and yet at 
the very time that the mother was protesting to me that 
the true way to bring up a child was to teach him to play 
cards and to educate him against their wrong use, I knew 
that a son that she loved as" the apple of her eye could be 
found almost any night in one of the worst gambling 
saloons in that place," and that he was one who was fore"- 



80 brockton's perils. 

most in the gambling'. I have reason to believe that it 
was his passion for gambling that kept him from Christ, 
that has finally lost him his home, and that may yet make 
of him an utter wreck. These. are but illustrative cases. 
I think you were all surprised at a brother here, who af- 
ter my sermon of two weeks ago, stood up and told us his 
experience in this line. It was simply a corroboration of 
what I have here said. I know of no* other game against 
which so much can be justly said. I know of no other game 
that has led astray and ruined men aiul women in mind 
and body as has the game of cards. If any other game 
has such a record it surely should be rejected along with 
this. I am therefore obliged, as a good citizen, as one 
interested in the well being of his fellows, to say that as 
for me I will have nothing to do with that game, and I 
will do all that I can to keep others from making use of 
it. I was very sharply criticised for calling the cards the 
devil's bible. If you will recall what I said, you will 
remember that I said that I had been accustomed to hear 
card players themselves call their pack of cards their Bible 
or testament. Times without number have I heard them 
so do. I believe there is a deep truth in their use of that 
term, which to Christian ears always seems so sacrilegious. 
The game does take the place with many that the Bible 
occupies with the Christian. It is the main solace and 
comfort, the one thing to which they flee. If that be a 
Bible, as these declare, whose Bible is it? God's or the 
devil's Is it not the work of the devil to substitute the 
pack of cards for the word of the living God? Who but 
the enemy of all souls can have done this? 

It had been my intention to take up dancing in this dis- 
course, but as I cannot finish the whole matter of amuse- 
ments to-night, and as I have already siDoken the usual 
length of time, I will stop here and endeavor to complete 
what I have to say on the topic of amusements next Sun- 
day evening. I respectfully request any who have ques- 
tions to ask or criticisms to offer, to send them to me, as 
early as possible, and I will endeavor to give them an 
honest consideration and answer. 

Before dismissing you, let me for a moment turn your 
thought again to the words of the text. It is God's own 
word to you, as much as to Israel of old, bidding you, for 
yourself, look carefully and see where is the good old 
way and walk therein/ God promises that so-doing you 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 81 

shall find rest for your souls. Whatever may be your 
opinion of card -playing, you know well that it does not 
give rest to your soul: that it does not bring peace to the 

troubled heart. Standing' in the way- and looking for 
the good old paths, you shall hear Jesus saying. " I am the 
way : come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden 
and I will o-iye you rest.'' 



As usual there was an interesting second meeting in 
which the positions taken by the pastor were heartily en- 
dorsed by the members of the church. The next day the 
local papers both had very full reports of the sermon. 
The Boston Globe and Herald also gave quite lengthly 
reports. These reports were generally good and helped 
to get the truth before the people. 



11 



82 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 



XIV. 



A SERMON BY KEV. E. H. SWEET, 

(Pastor of the North Baptist Church, Brockton.) 



On Sunday,March 2, this most.excellent pastor preached 
a very interesting sermon on 

THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 

In this sermon he treated of the offence of the cross, (1) 
in atonement, (2) in duty, and (3) in destiny; and then, 
under the head of objections, he urged the following, 
which were understood to be prompted in par,t at least by 
the discussions then going on concerning " Brockton's 
Perils :" 

It has sometimes been urged that preaching against sin 
awakens a latent curiosity, and thus tempts men to com- 
mit sin for the sake of investigating and proving it for 
themselves. If this is sound reasoning, it is unsafe to 
label arsenic or strychnine as " Poison ' y because it will 
awaken curiosity, and induce men to drink the poisonous 
dose to learn its deadly eilects. It would be a great blun- 
der to tell the boys that Niagara Falls is un suited for bath- 
ing purposes, for their awakened curiosity would lead 
them at the first opportunity to leap into the seething 
waters of the mighty cater act. This argument (?), though 
it is sometimes urged with great persistency, is too absurd 
to merit further attention. 

Another objection to faithfuljpreaching is that it leads 
the people to think that the pulpit is trying to injure them. 
If the pulpit is established for the purpose of pleasing 
men, the objection is valid ; but if the pulpit is established 
for preaching the gospel, the objection is worthless. 
When men preached against slavery* the slaveholders said, 
" Let us alone, do not persecute us." When temperance 
workers denounce the saloon trade, the saloonists say, 
" We are doing a legitimate business, the cranks are per- 
secuting honest citizens." When the sins of the people 
are faithfully told, the ungodly cry out, "narrow minded," 



brockton's perils. 83 

" bigots," " we've outgrown the Bible," etc. This is 
advanced ground. It is a wonderful sight that confronts 
us, — Jesus persecuting' a guiltless (?) world! 

Truth is always aggressive. The cross discloses and 
declares human guilt. Herein we discover the genesis of 
all opposition to the gospel. " This is the condemnation, 
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness 
rather than light because their deeds were evil." Repen- 
tance is offensive because it demands that men must turn 
away from their sins. Baptism is still more offensive be- 
cause it makes a public confession of sin and of Christ 
obligatory. Baptism becomes doubly objectionable be- 
cause the form of its administration symbolizes our death 
to sin and life to righteousness. Paul's motto is too ex- 
clusive for modern time, — " One Lord, one faith, one 
baptism." 

As long as the heart retains its pride, '• future punish- 
ment " will form a fruitful field for polemical strife. 
Men hate the " great gulf fixed," that separates Lazarus 
from the rich man. They imprecate the Judge who pro- 
nounces the last sentences : ,k These shall go away into ever- 
lasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. " 

Shall we then flatter the wicked, and court their popu- 
larity by crying " Peace, peace, when there is no peace?" 
Shall we tell them that the theatre, the dance hall, and the 
card table are not fraught with perils ? When Rome was 
invaded by a famine, the Emperor Nero brought a ship 
load (not of provisions fo feed the starving, but) of sand 
to be used for gladiatorial shows. And shall we cease to 
warn men of their eternal danger, and truckle to the un- 
godly for their applause? Not until we get a new Master, 
and another Bible. 



84 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

XV. 
POSITIONS OF OTHER PASTORS. 



The position of Rev. E. H. Sweet could easily be under- 
stood from the extract from his sermon just given, but 
he had previously sent the following letter, which ex- 
plains itself and his position beyond the possibility of 
mistake : 

50 Clarence St., Brockton, Feb. 24th, 1890. 
Dear Bro. R. : 

Greeting! The enemy is badly wounded. He 
is dying hard, but he cannot survive long. When you 
come to preach his funeral sermon, send us word; and 
North Baptist Church and Pastor will attend, and if nec- 
essary, will gladly assist in the interment. We would 
have sent similar salutation (please excuse the alliteration) 
last week, but we opined that if you needed sympathy in 
your bereavement for the dead, or any assistance at the 
interment, you would not be in doubt for one moment as 
to our attitude in the premises. You know we are always 
on hand at such a time. A press of work will not admit 
of a long letter, such as I would like to send von. 

Yours for the truth. E. H. SWEET. 

The southern part of our city has a post office of its 
own, known as Campello. The Baptist church there is 
named " The Warren Avenue. " ? The following from the 
pastor of that church also speaks for itself : 

Campello, March 4, 1890. 
Dear Bro. Ricrardsox: 

I bid you Good-speed. I see that 
the Enterprise reports your sermon this time without 
comment! There have been some Congregational com- 
ments at this end of the city which have not been compli- 
mentary to Bro. Warn* eld's deliverance. I am also the 
recipient of commendation for my " courage " in presid- 
ing at the Lansing meeting the other evening. I like to 
see Baptist stock rising in value in this Congregational 
town. Yours fraternally, 

GEO. B, LAWTON. 



brockton's perils. So 

As the Swedish Baptist church was at this time without 
a pastor, the above includes all" the regular Baptist minis- 
ters in the city. The Free Baptist minister, Rev. H. Lock- 
heart, expressed himself publically as favorable to the 
positions taken by the author. Of the three Methodist 
ministers. Rev. Frank P. Parkin, pastor of the Central 
M. E. church, sent by a mutual friend, his compliments 
and encouragement. The pastor of the church at The 
Heights, Rev. Mr. Kellogg, seconded heartily the effort 
made, and preached a sermon somewhat in line with the 
leading ideas. From Rev. Mr. Oldham of Campello noth- 
ing was heard by the author. There was also a newly 
organized church that was supplied by a student from 
whom nothing was heard. From the Congregationalist 
pastors nothing was heard either way, except a possible 
allusion to it sometime after, by the Campello pastor, and 
the sermon and interview of Rev. Mr. Warfield already 
given. 80 far as the author is aware, nothing was said 
either way by the pastors of any of the other churches in 
the city. ^Ve have nearly all shades of belief, including, 
in addition to those already mentioned. Episcopal, Uni- 
tarian, Universalist, Swedenborgian, Mormon, and one 
or two Spiritualist societies. It will thus appear how 
very little ground there was for the reports that there was 
a prospect of a lively controversy between the ministers 
and that they were denouncing any part of the movement 
from their pulpits. 



86 brockton's perils. 

XVI. 
OTHER CRITICISMS. 



After the publication of this sermon the criticisms grew 
more favorable. Everybody was talking' about it, and 
the members of the church and other friends heard a 
great variety of views expressed, but very generally it 
came to be allowed that what Mr. Richardson had said 
was true, and the number of his defenders greatly multi- 
plied. Among the things still very strongly denied, how- 
ever, was the statement that there was gambling on the 
• cars between this city and Boston. Among those to whom 
such denials were made, was one of the converts who had 
been recently baptized. A shopmate, who was ridiculing 
this statement, turned on this young man saying, 

"It is vour pastor that made that statement, isn't it?" 

" It is." 

" Well, it is a falsehood." 

"You are mistaken, I know that it is true." 

" How do you know it?" 

" Because I am one of the men that has been doing it." 

It is but fair to say that this statement was as complete 
a surprise to the pastor, so far as this particular person 
was concerned, as it could have been to that shopmate, for 
he was not before aware that this young man had ever 
gambled. 

On the whole the denial of gambling on the cars came 
out so ingloriously as to make a squib that appeared in 
the Chicago Tribune at about this time seem very oppor- 
tune in reference to this case. The squib was as follows : 

" Is there any gambling going on in this city?" inquired 
Mayor Cregier. " I know of none," said D. C. Cregier. 
" Gentlemen," exclaimed the Mayor, turning to the awe- 
struck spectators and dismissing the whole matter with a 
dignified wave of the hand, " there is no gambling in Chi- 
cago. It must be some other city." 



BROCKTON S RERILS. 



OTHER LETTERS RECEIVED. 



From other letters received but not printed 'elsewhere, 
we take the following extracts : 

" It cannot be expected now, any more than in the past, 
that those who are of the world should accept the teach- 
ings of the gospel without rebelling when their pet sins 
are touched upon. It may be from a humble source, yet 
the manly. Christian attitude you have assumed has ex- 
cited my admiration. My prayers are for you. I hear 
from many sources that you have the sympathy of many 
in your work." 

Signed 

From letters received from strangers in other towns and 
cities ; The following are taken : 

"I read the daily Enterprise and am much interested 
in your sermons. I think you answered Mr. "Warfield in 
a Christian spirit. May God bless you in doing your duty. 
I have always thought that ministers should preach the 
plain truth regardless of what people say or think of them. 
Smooth sermons will never reach those who are living a 
double life. They must have something- that will show 
them that they are living in sin. I could not rest until I 
had expressed my sincere sympathy for you in your great 
work." 

The above was signed by both husband and wife. 

" In yesterday's Boston Herald I saw an article entitled 
" Brockton's Perils. " As a business man of Lynn, I wish 
to express my appreciation of the manly and courageous 
manner in which you stand by the truth, I can assure 
you that you have made more than one friend in Lynn. 

Signed ■ 

Perhaps the following, which appeared among the " Sat- 
urday scribblings " of the Enterprise for March 29, may 
as well appear in this connection : 

Here is an illustration for Pastor Richardson to use in 
his next sermon against card playing. Nine years ago a 
young professional man came to Brockton and opened an 
office. He was an adept at his business, and soon had a 
good patronage. Socially he was the peer of any of the 
young men in the city, and in every way his future j>ro ra- 
ised to be a bright one. He had one verv bad trait— an 



88 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

inordinate love for gambling— but it had as yet not made 
its strength felt. He played a little for money, but very 
little, and nattered himself he knew when to stop. He 
soon married, and a charming* girl baby was the result of 
the union. A relative died and $10,000 or more came to 
him. 

Now the gaming fever exhibited its power, and soon 
business was neglected for short intervals, and the gam- 
ing houses of Boston knew him more than his own home 
did. Naturally business grew worse, family troubles 
came up, and he plunged in heavier. There is no need 
of following out the story. It is the same old tale. "Wife 
went, business went, wealth went, health went, and at 
last his office was closed and he left the city in which so 
bright a future had stretched before him. 



During the week following the second reply, the Enter- 
2irise asked permission to print a sketch of the life of the 
author, with his picture; this request was cheerfully 
granted, and on Saturday the cut and sketch appeared 
that are found in the opening pages of this book. 

The following Sunday evening the church was again 
crowded and the sermon that follows was delivered. 



brockton's perils. 89 

XVII. 
THIRD REPLY. 

DANCING AND THEATRE-GOING. 

There is a way which seemeth ri.aht unto a man, but the end thereof 
are the ways of death. — Proverbs xiv. 12. 

[Before entering on this sermon, the pastor made the 
following statement: During these recent discussions I 
have learned that there is the most surprising ignorance 
in this city with reference to what we as a denomination 
believe. Some of us could hardly credit the fact that 
anybody entertained such ideas of our belief as we have 
found existing. If a recent utterance from one of our 
pulpits is, as I am told is commonly supposed, to be un- 
derstood as aimed at Baptists, then it would seem that 
some of the most intelligent people stand greatly in need 
of enlightenment. Some people would x>robably be asham- 
ed to be as ignorant of the teachings of Buddhism as they 
appear to be of Baptist teachings. On this account, I 
shall, next Sunday evening, if the Lord will, speak on 
"The Baptist belief: what and why?" I shall count it a 
favor if those who are opposed to the Baptists will then 
give me an opportunity of setting before them the belief 
of the Baptists, and the reasons therefor. I thank you 
all for having given me the opportunity of speaking, for 
myself and the church, to you personally as to the views 
held concerning " Brockton's Perils,'- and the concomi- 
tant dangers. "Now I shall be pleased if you will also 
listen to my defense of our peculiar views as Baptists.] 

u Fools make a mock at sin." " The backslider in heart 
shall be filled with his own ways." Between these two 
assertions of God's holy word" lies the statement of the 
tex.t that there is a way* that seems right unto a man but 
that nevertheless ends in death. 

It is a beautiful summer s night with a full moon. You 

are on the Nigara river above the falls and floating toward 

them. The sensation is delightful. Your boat moves 

quietly but rapidly on with scarce a ripple. It costs you 

12 



90 brockton's perils. 

no effort to move in that direction. It would cost you an 
effort to move in another and an opposite direction. Some- 
body from the shore hails you with a cry of danger. 
You do not believe it. The way seems to you right, and 
it is pleasant. The warning is repeated, but you do not 
heed it. By and by you hear the roar of the falls, and 
awaken to your peril. You are moving faster than you 
supposed, and you catch up your oars to escape. It is'too 
late. You have gone too far, and struggling against it, 
you go over the falls. The way seemed right; it ended 
in death. Would you not say of yourself in such a case, 
u What a f ool !" Had you been there before and been res- 
cued, would you not think it but just that you, as a back- 
slider, should now be filled with your own ways? Our 
railroads have one rule that is paramount to all others, 
viz., " Where doubt exists, always adopt the safe 
course," a sentence worthy to be written in gold and kept 
before the eyes of all, as a general guide in questions of 
morals and of conduct. 

The attack on certain well-known and commonly re- 
ceived forms of amusement is based on the conviction 
that they are 

the pathways of temptation 

to gross forms of sin ; that they are the ways that seeming 
right unto a man, yet lead to and end in death. That 
just because they are so seemingly innocent and are so at- 
tractive, they are peculiarly fitted to lead men and women 
astray, who would not be misled by the grosser forms of 
evil. That just because they do so much resemble an an- 
gel of light, they are in danger of deceiving the very elect. 
It takes a very subtle temptation to lead a true Christian 
astray. It takes a very deceptive one to lead astray many of 
those who are simply good moralists. But no man or wo- 
man is left untempted of the Evil One, who knows well 
how to adapt his temptation so as to meet the case of the 
one that is to be tempted. There are some fish that can be 
caught with a bare hook, but there are others for whom 
the hook needs to be most carefully and deceptively baited 
or they will never be caught. The charge we make against 
the forms of temptation that we are to discuss to-night is 
that they belong to the list of temptations calculated to 
deceive and mislead the best, and it was wholly on account 
of this that they entered at all into " Brockton Perils.' 7 



brockton's perils. 01 

Many of you did not hear my last Sunday night's dis- 
course owing to the terrible storm that was then raging. 
I presume that you have read reports of that sermon in the 
papers. Those reports, so far as I saw them, were gener- 
ally excellent and I am greatly indebted to the reporters 
and the press for their kindness and faithfulness in mak- 
ing such reports. Presuming that you have read some 
one or more of these records, I must yet ask your indul- 
gence for a few moments while I recall certain points that 
are of great importance to the just appreciation of what I 
have still to say. Pardon me therefore for repeating, that 
I am not an opponent of amusements but believe in them 
so far as they serve a legitimate purpose; but that I also 
believe that temptation comes to us along the lines of pleas- 
ure, of self gratification, and so it would be passing 
strange if temptation did not lurk in some of this world's 
pleasures. It is from that side that we need to be most 
carefully on our guard. There was never a more danger- 
ous rule laid down than this: " Whatever pleases thee, 
that thou mayest do." Our Saviour tells us that whoso- 
ever will be his disciple " must deny himself and take up 
his cross daily." 

TWO PRINCIPLES 

were laid down last Sunday evening as tests on the amuse- 
ment question : (1) That am usement should serve the pur- 
pose of recreation and not of dissipution. and (2) that 
the historical principle should be applied to*amusements. 
as well as to men and boo~ks. Amusements are not all 
alike,, and hence are not to be judged and condemned or 
justified in a body. Each one must be judged by itself, 
and must stand or fall on its own merits and by its own 
history. If its results in the past have been good, we may 
receive it : if its results have been bad. we must reject it. 
It is the same principle that we apply to men . ^Ye receive 
or reject each man on his own record. So should it be 
with amusements. This is the principle I am applying. 

Nor should it be overlooked that only a very fern out of 
the multitudinous forms of amusement are challenged. 
The few that are challenged are thus challenged not only 
by Christians, but by multitudes in this and in other 
lands, who make no profession of Christianity. Under 
such circumstances it can hardly be possible that there is 
no reason for such challenge. It behooves men and wo- 



92 brockton's perils. 

men to find out the reasons that lie behind this opposition. 
And yet, even without knowing' altogether the reasons, 
the bad reputation of these particular forms of amuse- 
ment ought to be enough to make any good man or wo- 
men hesitate before accepting or endorsing them, just as 
we should hesitate about giving any man our assistance 
and endorsement wmen we know that he has a bad repu- 
tation. Attention was also called to the fact that in my 
first sermon on " Brockton's Perils,*' emphasis was laid 
on the truth that there are in the human breast three ter- 
rible passions. Passions which it is very dangerous to 
arouse and to stimulate, and that the specific charge 
against these forms of amusement was that they do tend 
to arouse and stimulate one or the other of these three pas- 
sions: drinli, gambling, licentiousness. 

It was charged, and I think the charge was sustained by 
good evidence, that the game of cards tends to arouse and 
stimulate the passion for gambling as no other game does. 
If there is any other game that is like it in its tendencies, 
then that game also should be disallowed to drop into 
innocuous desuetude. Some one has asked me to say 
something about 

BILLIARDS AND POOL. 

I am frank to say that my limited knowledge of these 
games is such as to make me wish that men would let 
them alone, but as yet I am not prepared to say that they 
act just as this game of cards acts. I am quite certain 
however, that, they have, in some instances within my 
notice, been a stepping stone to drinking and to gambling. 
It is surely safe to let them alone. It surely is not safe 
for some to meddle with them. Still I have not had the 
same opportunity to study and know about these that I 
have had to study and know about the cards. They are in 
bad odor among many of the best men who know most 
about them, and ought certainly to be classed among 
things doubtful, if not positively evil. 

If Paul for the sake of his weak brother could forego 
even the eating of meat, we surely can forego any recre- 
ation that we find is likely to be a peril to any, and espec- 
ially when it may be a peril even to ourselves. 

So far as the game of cards is concerned, while other 
very grave charges could be sustained by good evidence, 
the most serious of all being sustained, viz., that it tends 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 9o 

to arouse and stimulate the gambling passion, it is unnec- 
essary to take up any other charges. When the man came 
into court prepared to state thirteen reasons why his client 
was not present, the first of which was that he was dead, 
the court very properly decided that it was unnecessary 
to listen to the other twelve reasons for the man's absence. 
Since this game tends to gambling in many cases, that is 
enough. Other games, as checkers, chess, backgammon, 
etc., have undoubtedly been abused, but they have no 
such record behind them as has the game of cards. To 
some the game of cards may have been entirely harmless, 
but to many they have taken the place of the Bible itself 
and proved the sure road to destruction. Even business 
men of the world look with suspicion on the clerk who is 
fond of cards. 

So much by way partly of recapitulation and partly of 
addition. Let us now apply the historical principle to 
the other two forms of amusement : dancing and theatre- 
going. 

I ask your attention therefore next to the question of 

DANCING. 

Here again we are confronted with the fact that many, 
in the churches and in the world, are opposed to this forin 
of amusement. Indeed I have rarely heard any one 
attempt to defend it in the form in which it is prevalent 
in this city. Of course there are so-called churches that 
both defend and practice dancing, and that after a some- 
what promiscuous fashion , but they are in a pitiable minor- 
ity and are very rarely among those that are reckoned 
evangelistic. The truth is that the great body of Chris- 
tians, and a great company of those who are not Chris- 
tians, are a unit in their condemnation of dancing, as it 
is now ordinarily practiced. 

A few years ago a friend of mine, a Congregationalist 
clergyman, was at Old Orchard Beach He tells me that he 
there met a wealthy man of the world, who with his 
wife and daughters seemed to be there simply to 
get what enjoyment they could. The minister noticed 
that these daughters never danced. He thought it very 
singular, and at last asked the father how it happened. 
The reply in substance was this: " While I care nothing 
about religion and should have no scruples on that score, 
my own experience and knowledge of the world has 



94 BROCKTON ? S PERILS. 

shown me that dancing is a very unsafe practice for yonug 
ladies, and I am not willing that my daughters should 
join in the dance. With me it is simply a question of 
morals, and my opinion is that dancing is a menace to 
good morals and that, as a lover of good morals, I ought to 
set my face against it." That opinion is by no means an 
uncommon one among people who make no profession of 
religion. 

Modern dancing finds it special zest and flavor in the 
bringing together of the opposite sexes. My special 
charge against it now is, that it tends to arouse and in- 
flame passions that ought not to be aroused or inflamed. 
Under other circumstances I should bring additional 
charges against dancing as now carried on ; but it was 
from this standpoint that I spoke of it in my sermon on 
"Brocktons Perils," and it is from this standpoint that 
we will consider it to-night, i.e. we approach it purely as 
a question of good morals. The real question is, Does, or 
does not, this form of amusement have in it tendencies 
that are dangerous to good morals? Is it not, to many, a 
pathway of temptation ? If it is,my position is correct ; if it 
is not, my position, so far as the moral question is concern- 
ed, is an erroneous one, though there would still remain a 
whole line of investigation which I do not touch upon at 
all to-night, viz., those things which relate to .the Chris- 
tian life and influence. But having originally chosen to 
attack on the moral lines I still choose to stand there in 
making my defense. 

In the first place 

CONSIDER THE COMPANY 

into which a young girl is likely to be thrown who attends 
one of the many dances in this city. The only restriction 
on attendance is the purchase of a ticket. The good and 
the bad are alike welcome, if they pay the price of the 
ticket. There is no attempt at drawing any lines con- 
cerning attendance. jSTor is there ordinarily any attempt 
to draw a line as to who shall participate in the dancing. 
I do not know what was attempted this year, but last year 
I happened to receive one of the bills circulated for the 
police ball. That bill I very carefully preserved, especi- 
ally on account of one line that is printed thereon, viz: 
" Objectionable persons not allowed on the floor.'' I won- 
dered what constituted an objection to any one. I won- 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 95 

dered if the line was attempted to be drawn at character, 

and. if so. by what means they determined who had and 
who had not enough character to dance. At any rate it 
was a confession of danger. But. unless I am wrongly in- 
formed, in many of these dances, not even such an attempt 
as this is made. My point is this, and it is tire very point I 
made to the policeman, who this year asked me to buy a 
ticket to that ball, viz., " that a young' lady going there is 
likely to be brought into close personal contact with, and to 
a certain extent be put into the power of bad men." (It is 
of course equally true that young men may be thus thrown 
• into dangerous associations with bad women.) To that 
point I have not heard any person take exception. I claim 
then, that the promiscuous dancing with which we are here 
so familiar is very dangerous in its possible, if not nec- 
cessary, associations. 

WHAT ABOUT THE DAXCLXG ITSELF? 

I claim that dancing permits and requires liberties to be 
given and allowed that would be permitted nowhere else, 
and that if offered on the street or even in the private par- 
lor would be deemed an insult. Am I wrong? 

A few years ago the New Tori- Journal of Education 
stated that the chief of police in Xew York City had said 
that •• three-fourths of the abandoned girls in that city 
were ruined by dancing.*' Xow we will grant that he 
may have been mistaken in many instances, and that he 
may have overestimated the proportion, yet is it not true 
that when a man in his position makes an assertion like 
that, there is reason for the ordinary man and woman to 
stop and question very seriously before giving their en- 
couragement or countenance to such an amusement? Let 
me emphasize, in passing, the words encouragement and 
countenance. For there are those, not a few, who will not 
dance, and who think it is wrong to dance, who will yet 
go where it is in progress and give it the countenance of 
their presence, either before the dancing begins or by 
remaining to look on. Mr. Spurgeon tells us that he 
sometimes goes to Monaco, but that he never goes near 
the grounds of the gambling hell that is there, though 
they are the most beautiful in the world. Why does he 
not? He tells us that it is not that there is any danger of 
his passing through those grounds to the gambling tables, 
but because a friend of his related to him the following 



96 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

experience. The friend said: " One day M. Blanc met 

me and asked me why I never entered his grounds. i TTell 
yon see/ I said. 'I never play, and, as I make no returns 
whatever to yon, I hardly feel justified in availing* myself 
of the advantages of your grounds.' ' Yon make a great 
mistake,' said M. Blanc, ' if it was not for you and other 
respectable persons like yourself who come to my grounds 
I should lose many customers who attend my gambling- 
saloons. Do you imagine that because you do not play 
yourself that yon do not by your presence in my grounds 
contribute materially to my revenue. Numbers of per- 
sons who would not have thought of entering my estab- 
lishment feel themselves quite safe in following you into 
my garden, and from thence to the gambling table the 
transition is easy.' " TTe cannot afford to be the decoy 
ducks of the evil one. If dancing is the pathway of temp- 
tation, we cannot afford to have any connection with it. 

But to return to the prime question. Is it wrong? How 
can it be otherwise, if no small proportion of the aban- 
doned women of the great city of New York were brought 
to that condition through dancing? But, you say, you 
have known those who never danced to be ruined. Of 
course you have. The devil has more than one string to 
his bow. He will deceive if possibe the very elect. He 
knows how to tempt them who will not dance. But the 
question is, whether or not there is in this special amuse- 
ment a tendency in this direction. 

Dr. Butler, in his " Land of the Veda," tells us that, 
" no man in India will allow his wife or daughter to 
dance; and as to dancing with another man, he would be 
certain to forsake her forever as a woman lost to virtue 
and modesty, if she were to attempt it. In their obser- 
vation of white women, there is no tiling that so much 
perplexes them as the fact that fathers and husbands will 
permit their wives and daughters to indulge in promiscuous 
dancing. No argument will convince them that this act 
is such as a virtuous woman should practice, or that its 
tendency is not licentious." He adds, " Dancing forms 
no part of a daughter's education in India, and never will 
— unless they are corrupted by christian example" '^Are 
the heathen wrong in their conviction on this point ? 

A Eoman Catholic bishop has declared that u the con- 
fessional reveals that nineteen out of every twenty women 
who fall can trace their sad state to the modern dance." 



bkockton's perils. ( J7 

Now I do not know whether the statements of this chief 

of police and this bishop are true or not, but I do know 
that such statements ought to make me very careful how 
I throw my influence in favor of such an amusement. 

If I look to see how it can be possible that this form of 
amusement may have this effect, I find no difficulty in 
discovering a possible solution. Take. e. g\, the state- 
ments of a Frenchman, the Viscount de Brienx Saint- 
Laurent, in a pamphlet he has published on dancing, in 
which he says, in substance, that the young christian girls 
will polka, then waltz; then the polka-mazourka and" the 
schottische passes them into the arms and on to the palpita- 
ting breasts of excited young men. and the pure girls give 
themselves up. between the two communions, to the clasp 
of the 1iY>t comer, and mothers applaud, while he regards 
the whole thing as substantial prostitution. 

Let me give you a portion of the confession of a noble 
lady. It is not new. It has long been in print. I give 
it simply because the challenge seems to require it. I 
leave out some portions of it that may seem even stronger 
than those I read: "You asked me to-day what I think 
about round dances. I am glad of an opportunity to lay 
my opinion before the world. * * * I scarcely know 
what to write. * * * I will, however, venture to lay 
bare a young girl's heart and mind, by giving you my 
own experience in the days when I waltzed. In those 
days I cared little for polka or varsovienne, still less for 
the old fashioned money musk, or Virginia reels, and 
wondered what people could find to admire in those dan- 
ces ; but in the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange 
pleasure rather difficult to intelligently describe. The 
mere anticipation fluttered my pulse and when my part- 
ner approached to claim my promised hand to dance I 
felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes and I could not 
look him in the eyes with the same frank gaiety as hereto- 
fore : but the climax of my confusion was reached when, 
folded in his warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a 
strange thrill would shake me from head to foot leaving 
me weak and powerless and really almost obliged to de- 
pend for support upon the arm that encircled me. If my 
partner failed through ignorance, lack of skill, or inno- 
cence to arouse these to me most pleasurable sensations, 
I did not dance with him a second time. I am speaking 
openly and frankly, and when I say I did not understand 



98 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

what I felt or what were the real and greatest pleasures 
I derived from this so-called dancing*, I expect to be be- 
lieved. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended 
pleasure then, they grow pale with shame to-day when I 
think of it at all. It was the physical emotions engen- 
dered by the magnetic contact of strong men that I was 
enamored of —not of the dance, not even by the men them- 
selves. Thus I became abnormally developed in my low- 
est nature. * * * All this while no one said to me, 
' You do wrong.' We had been taught that it was right 
to dance. Our parents did it. Our friends did it, and 
we were permitted to do it. I will say also that all the 
girls with whom I associated, with one exception, had 
much the same experience in dancing. * * Felt that 
almost imperative necessity for closer communion than 
that which the waltz permits, without knowing exactly 
why, or even comprehending what." 

Other persons have offered similar testimony. 

Opposed to it the plea is skillfully made that this amuse- 
ment gives grace to the person, and yet Cato tells us that 
when Rome was giving the world the most illustrious 
specimens of grace and beauty of person, only the vile 
would engage in the dance. This amusement is certainly 
not necessary to the development of gracefulness, but, if 
it was, would not that grace be purchased at altogether 
too high a price if the half of what has here been said is 
true ? 

There is a multitude of other things that one feels like 
saying, the most of which must here remain unuttered 
for lack of time, and on account of the one single point of 
attack chosen; but I cannot forbear to call your attention 
to the way in which the dance is associated with certain 
forms of the worst kinds of vice. Who does not know 
the expressive significance of the word 

" DANCE HALLS." 

Is it any wonder that the dance can serve this purpose? 
Is it not exactly fitted thereto? Singularly adapted to 
arouse and stimulate those passions ? Whence came these 
dances that are so much in vogue to-day? Are they not 
the offspring of the French bagnios, created expressly to 
serve the purposes of the demi-monde? Are they not 
adapted to this purpose, as nothing else is? Have we not 
herein sufficient reason to shun such an amusement, wholly 



brockton's perils. 99 

aside from other moral and religious reasons? These reli- 
gious reasons are strong, but I have chosen to appeal to you 
simply on moral grounds. Are not these reasons strong 
enough to make any lover of good morals hesitate before 
he countenances such an amusement? Do you think it is 
mere prejudice that actuates men and churches in oppos- 
ing dancing? TTould you like to have your own wife 
thrown under these influences? Do you think it a good 
place for your own daughters? If it is not good for wife 
and daughter, is it good for other women? Is it good for 
you ?* 

IN THE WAY. 

Were there time. I should like to add some of the 
weighty testimonies as to how this amusement has stood 
in the way of the salvation and blessing of some of those 
who have here recently found the Saviour. How often 
during the past weeks have we heard this, and the other 
two amusements challenged, spoken of as preventing this 
one and that one from getting into the light and liberty 
of the gospel. Some have gone on for years, calling them- 
selves Christians, but unwilling to give up these forms of 
amusement, and finding no real peace and comfort and 
joy. I suppose there are thousands of people who call 
themselves Christians, and who think they are, who know 
but little of the peace that passeth all understanding, be- 
cause they have from the first sought to make a com- 
promise with God. They have never been willing to come 
out from the world and be separate. They have wanted 
to keep hold of the pleasures of the world with one hand, 
and to grasp those of the gospel with the other. Xo one 
ever yet succeeded in doing this, and no one ever can. 
If you could persuade men that this would answer, many 
of them would no doubt make a profession of religion, 
but they could never thus come to know the power there- 
of. Xot knowing the power, they become a peril in and 
of themselves, since they think they know all about it, 
when they know nothing about it in reality, and if they 

* Attempting, while reading these proofs, to do what I could to save a 
fallen man, I was surprised by a confession that he had formerly been a 
member of one of the Congregationalist churches in this city and that his 
fall could be traced directly to attendance on a ball to which himself and 
wife had been induced to go when in a backslidden state— " That was 
the beginning of my evil doing," he declared, " and 1 have become a bad 
man." This is but one of many testimonies that should have weight 
With thoughtful minds. 



100 brockton ? s perils. 

testify truthfully they must testify that they have not 
found religion what many represented it to be, and what 
it is represented in the word of God. Profession is not 
possession, though many mistake it therefor. What the 
world needs is true disciples, full of the spirit of the Lord 
Jesus. If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none 
of his. 

But it remains to call your attention to one other amuse- 
ment, viz., 

THEATRE-GOING. 

Here again I made my attack along the lines of moral- 
ity, because I believed that it deserved to be attacked 
along that line, and because I wanted to reach a class of 
persons that would not be influenced very largely by the 
purely religious reasons. And yet, as I have already in- 
dicated, we have had some remarkable testimonies along 
this religious line within the past few weeks. Having 
heard, night after night, this one and that one tell how 
for months, or in some cases years, the theatre had stood 
in the way of their yielding themselves fully to God, and 
and so in the way of their own salvation and blessing, one 
could hardly but feel that this was one of the perils to 
which men and women were exposed. And yet I did not 
present any of these amusements as in and of themselves 
constituting the perils against which I wished to warn. 
I chose to present these amusements as the outskirts of 
temptation, as the paths leading thereto, paths seemingly 
innocent in themselves, but leading toward the grosser 
forms of vice, by arousing and stimulating passions that 
there find their gratification. Far be it from me to make 
any sweeping charges against actors and actresses, or 
against managers. I said nothing whatsoever about them 
in my sermon on " Perils,' 7 nor do I care to do so now. 
My charge against the theatre is that historically it has 
tended to evU, by arousing and stimulating passions that 
need to be kept in check. Mighty efforts have been made 
to reform the theatre. Its patrons are all the time calling 
on the better class to try and help reform it. The very 
cry for reform is itself a confession of evil. These at- 
tempts to reform the theatre have not been remarkably 
successful so far as I can learn. I have never attended 
the theatre, but at one time, not many years ago, I did 
take pains for quite a long time, that is to say for several 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 101 

years, to keep the run of all the plays in New York and 
Boston, as described in the daily papers of the time. 
I was deeply impressed with their salacious character, as 
thus described, and I take it for granted that the ordinary 

press reporter would not be likely to make it any worse 
than it is in that direction. I am also continually 
obliged, as you are, to see the advertisements that are 
flaunted in our faces in front of our very churches, as well 
as elsewhere. If the reality is anything like what they 
advertise, it certainly is not highly conducive to virtue. 
On the very week preceding the sermon that aroused so 
much criticism, there was shown me a sheet that had been 
circulated in our factories, that would certainly seem to 
have deserved suppression. In the sermon of three weeks 
ago, I cited the testimony of the manager of a theatre to 
myself, to the effect that he could not make the wholly 
unobjectionable plays profitable and was obliged to resort 
to the other kind in order to replenish a depleted treasury. 
I cited the fact that the famous actor Macready had said 
that he would not allow his own child to go to the theatre 
unless he knew just what play was to be acted. I cited 
the fact that M. JBequerel, director of the city prison of 
Paris, has said that he can tell when a new play of vicious 
character is put on the boards, by the increase of young 
men that come into his custody. I cited the facts con- 
nected with 

THE BATTLE THAT DR. HERRICK JOHNSON FOUGHT 

out a few years ago in Chicago, where he condemned his 
opponents out of their own mouths, when they attempted 
to deny the charges he had made concerning the actual 
state of the theatre in Chicago at that time. 

These charges he summed up as follows : 

" That the theatre is often a murderous assault upon all 
that the family circle holds most holy and sacred. " 

" That it strips young women of their ordinary attire, 
and exhibits them to the public gaze so clad that to the 
eye of the audience they seem, and are meant to seem, 
almost naked ! 

•• That the shafts of wit flung across the stage are often 
feathered from very obscene fowl." 

" That the theatre is the channel through which the filth 
and pollution of lewd and lascivious play-writers is 
poured into the minds of young men and women, thus 
poisoning the very springs of our social life." 



102 brockton's perils. 

" That the great mass of what has been put upon the 
boards of Chicago's theatre the last year has been trash 
of the most unadulterated description, often passing into 
the realms of the filthy and the vicious." 

What is true of Chicago must be true of New York or 
Boston, as I see substantially the same list of plays are in 
these cities that Dr. Johnson cites as proof, and the bills 
show that Brockton cannot claim to be greatly better. 

Among those most vehement in defending the character 
of his own theatre, as against Dr. Johnson, was J. H. 
McVicker, concerning whom an earnest advocate of him 
and of the theatre has since written in one of the Chicago 
dailies : 

"J. H. McVicker has probably the nearest approach to a 
strictly moral theatre in America. I know one company 
who were compelled to eschew their usual practice in pre- 
senting a certain popular play at this house ; there was a 
clause in the contract stating that on the slightest hint or 
approach to vulgarity the curtain would be rung down 
and the receipts forfeited. And, sir, it required two man- 
agers, one on each side of the stage, to keep that exces- 
sively lively company within bounds ; but they did it. 
Reform is needed sorely. But salacious performances 
pay best, and sensation attracts myriads, while humble 
virtue sits abashed in the shade." 

Now concerning this very McVicker's theatre, Dr. John- 
son showed that it began its season with a play of which 
the theatrical press writers said: "The plot abounds in 
surprises and intrigues so thoroughly Parisian it is quite 
as well that the words were in an unknown tongue," and 
that the season closed with another play of which a press 
writer said: "It is unmitigated and immitigable bosh 
from begining to end. It is crammed full of slang of the 
period, gathered from the street, the saloon, the race 
course — everything in fact. Some of the ladies costumes 
are rich and handsome, but rather short-waisted at the 
top." This was McVicker-s — spoken of so highly — but 
note what the writer whom I have quoted adds. Eemem- 
ber that this is a friend of the theatre, one of its advo- 
cates and defenders, that this is written not long ago, and 
that he confesses that "reform is needed sorely;" that 
" salacious performances pay best;" that " sensation at- 
tracts while humble virtue sits abashed in the shade." 
He says : 



BKOCKTON ? S PERILS. 103 

" The mess of rot and rubbish that is constantly being 
offered up for the delectation of Chicago theatre-goers is 
simply appalling; where we get one good bit of work wc 
get a full baker's dozen of bad lots that disgust the dis- 
cerning' and contaminate the innocent spectator. I think 
the most concise and by far the ablest consideration of 
this question was that of your own dramatic critic some 
weeks ago. He very decidedly called for the much-needed 
reform. Our local managers are not to blame in this 
abuse to a great extent, because they have to take what 
comes along — they are simply lessees, and act as janitors 
for their own houses. If our managers had stock com- 
panies, and then put on the rot and trash that these trav- 
eling fakirs present, then Dr. Johnson might well call for 
a mass-meeting to squelch the theatres. But the fact still 
remains, the pabulum offered to-dav at most of our thea- 
tres — nay more, at all of them from London to Hong- 
Kong, right around the world — is little better than trash." 

And yet this is what appeals to us for support and de- 
fense. It is this theatre that asks Christians to attend it 
and help to lift it up. Another has well said, "If they, the 
Christians, were to do so, the immediate inference would 
be that they like ' salacious performances ' as well as the 
rest. It would be a new reason for claiming that ; Chris- 
tians are no better than other people. 7 They would leave 
all their • moral power ; at the door of the theatre when 
they went in, and would take away only the shreds and 
rags of it when they came out." 

But some will say, 

IF I AM CAREFUL IX MY SELECTIOX, MAY I NOT GO? 

Will you be careful ? Canyon always tell beforehand 
just how it will be? What about your influence over that 
other young man or women who will not make the dis- 
tinction, and to whom the very charm lies in the sugges- 
tions of evil? Even at its best, Mrs. Kemble said of it, " I 
devoted myself to an occupation which I never liked or 
honored, and about the very nature of which I have never 
been able to come to any decided opinion." Dumas, the 
French novelist, said that theatres must ever be im- 
moral, and warned a friend never to take his daughter to 
them. I believe he was right. The tendencies that drag 
it down are mightier than those that tend to uplift it. The 
theatre is not needed. It is not likely to do £>ood in the 



104 brockton's perils. 

community. That is not the purpose for which it exists. 
Its influence is harmful. The play-goer is not the one 
who is steadily becoming' a better citizen and a nobler 
man. No merchant would think more highly of his clerk 
because he regularly attended the theatre night after 
night. No father would rejoice that his son had become 
deeply interested in theatricals. A reformed theatre 
would not pay. It is the unreformed theatre that the 
masses of the theatre-goers want. Is it any wonder 
that men all through the ages have been opposed to the 
theatre? Among the ancients we are told that Plato, Livy, 
Scipio, Valerius Maximus, Seneca and others are on re- 
cord as disapproving it. Christians from the earliest 
times until now are on record as opposing it. I am told 
that John Angell James is authority for saying that there 
is a book written in 1633, containing a catalogue of author- 
ities against the stage which comprises nearly every name 
of eminence in the heathen and Christian world. It em- 
braces the testimony of Christian and Jewish churches, 
the acts of 54 church councils and synods, etc. All through 
the ages there has been the cry of reform, but the theatre 
has never been successfully reformed yet, nor do we see 
any hope whatever that it ever will be. In the words of 
another, " It has within itself the seeds of corruption, 
and it exists only under a law of degeneracy.' 7 ^Ye have 
to do with it as it is, in its unreformed state. As it is, by 
the testimony of its very friends, it is not what it ought 
to be, it is often not fit for your wives and children and 
so ought not to be lit for you. Not so very long ago, a cor- 
respondent of a Boston paper, writing from Cincinnati 
concerning the brilliant opera season that had just closed, 
said: " Of the ten operas rendered, live were little less 
than glorifications of licentiousness.' 7 "In the less objec- 
tionable operas, jealousy, intrigue, and murder formed the 
staple of the plots ; and in two of them at least the ballet 
was introduced, probably to relieve the tameness of the 
performance that lacked the gallantries that relieved the 
coarser five. 77 Men sometime speak of the immoralities 
of the theatres in Paris, as though ours were much supe- 
rior in this respect, but not long ago we were told that a 
famous actress, who was received with tumultuous ap- 
plause on the stage of New York and even of Boston, 
was, after this, hissed for the exposure of her person, 
when she came upon the stage in Paris. One who was 



brockton*s perils. 105 

once an actor himself, but is now a Christian minister, 
has said, what "must strike ever)- mind with force, that 
•• If the dramatical element is so potent for good, surely 
if debased and perverted it must be potent for ill. Here 
lies the secret of the antagonism which thoughtful people 
have felt and still feel towards the theatre. There the 
dramatic is divorced from its mission, and. to an extent 
appallingly great, panders to Inst and seduces to crime. 
Alec onUie streets in undisguised nTthiness or holding its 
unblushing orgies in the halls of the procuress does not 
compare with the stage when surrendered to shame, in 
power to corrupt and in wiles to destroy. On its boards 
even villainy is invested with charms : and its portraits of 
debauchery attract infinitely more than they repel." 

AYhen Judge Xoah Davis pronounced sentence on Mrs. 
Coleman for shooting Coles her seducer, she having been 
led into her sin through her attendance at the theatre, 
Judge Davis said " Such places are always frequented by 
young libertines, on the alert to mislead women who come 
there unaccompanied by men." But that which is the 
worst feature of the case is that the theatre itself minis- 
ters to such nefarious purposes. 

There are many other tilings that might be said, but I 
fear that I shall weary your patience. I should like to 
talk about the cost of it. I should like to talk about the 
incidental evils, which are by no means small. I should 
like to talk about its effect on the religious life. But my 
one purpose to-night has been to show you that there 
are good and sufficient reasons in morals for the chal- 
lenge that the best men in the world has sent out against 
these forms of amusement. Do you. after looking it all 
over, think that we are simply prejudiced, that we are 
mere bigots, that there is no good reason, based on facts, 
for the position that we have assumed? If not. I have 
surely gained the special purpose for which I set out and 
have answered in a reasonably satisfactory manner my 
somewhat noisy critics. 

If I have Avon you thus far. let me press you just a lit- 
tle further with the thought of the text I have taken to- 
night; •'• There is a way that seems right unto a man. but 
the ends thereof are the ways of death." Does it not look 
reasonable to you. in the light of the facts I have have pre- 
sented, that these amusements of card-playing, dancing 
and theatre-going are of this very kind, and that, however 



106 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

right they may have seemed to you, it is possible at least 
that they will betray many feet' into the paths of death ; 
that they are indeed the pathways of temptation. It is the 
first step that costs. You are responsible not only for 
yourself, but for your brother and for your sister. Are 
you quite sure that you can go on in these courses and 
give an account such as you would like to render to Him 
before who you must shortly stand. It may be that you 
are not a religious man ; it may be that you do not even 
believe in Christianity ; and yet it is as certain as that the 
earth is now revolving on its axis, that we are all to stand 
before the judgment seat of Christ and there to give an 
account for the deeds done in the body, and that into the 
determination of the result will enter our entire influence, 
even to the idle words that we have spoken. It is a se- 
rious matter to die. It is a serious matter to stand before 
God in judgment. It is a serious matter to determine 
the destiny of a soul for time and eternity, whether that 
soul be our own or another's, yet that is precisely what 
we are doing. Let us not be misled by false lights, how- 
ever much they may profess to be true. Let us take the 
word of God and go by that. Such a course is surely 
safe. 

Take Jesus as your guide, He will never lead you 
astray. He will never lose a man that trusts fully to Him 
and does as he bids. Go only where you are willing to 
have Him go with you : go only where you are confident 
He is willing to go with you ; do only that which you 
are confident will meet with his approval, and you may 
rest certain that your light will shine out clearly in this 
dark world, and that you will guide some poor wanderer 
safe into heaven's own harbor. We talk about pleasure ; 
do you know the joy of saving a man ? Do you know the 
delight that comes from strengthening and encouraging 
the weak, from giving another an uplift in the way of 
righteousness? That is your privilege, and you surely are 
lifting up or dragging down others. There is no neutral 
ground. Either you are helping or you are hindering. 
You are either a true light or a false. Which are you? 
You may be very sharp on others, especially with those 
professing Christians who do not walk as you think they 
ought, but how about yourself? You are a false light or 
a true. Are you leading men to heaven, or are you lead- 
ing them to hell? 



brockton's perils. 107 

Let us not lose sight of the fact that the fight over the 
sermon on •• Brockton's Perils " lias been one chiefly con- 
cerning' 

LICENTIOUSNESS. 

It is not after all so much these amusements with which 
we are chiefly concerned, it is rather that to which they 
lead. It is not enough to avoid these. It is the perils 
that lie beyond, of which we stand in fear. It is the 
yielding to these terrible passions that is to destroy the 
soul. We attack these few forms of amusement, merely 
because we believe that they tend to arouse and stimulate 
one or the other of mairs three most terrible passions. It 
is because we believe that these three amusements are the 
pathways by which many are led on to that which ruins 
the soul, that we have attacked them. The}' were treated 
of incidentally in the original discourse that has created 
so much talk and discussion. It is the soul-destroying 
sins that we are after. It is these, from which we wish 
to dissuade men and women, both for their own sake and 
for the sake of others. "We want you to be manly and 
womanly. We want you to be Christ-like. We want 
you to help the weak, to strengthen the tempted, to uplift 
the fallen. We want you to cease to play the tempter, 
and to become the helper. We want you to quit the ser- 
vice of the devil and enter that of Jesus. We want you 
to have the spirit of Him who was willing to die that thus 
He might enable us to overcome. We want you to be 
strong for God and the right, that you may help to save 
the men and women who, whether you know it or not, 
are looking to and being led by you. upward or down- 
ward. We ask you to give up only that which is danger- 
ous, that which leads to evil. Will you do it? 

THE WAY TO SAVE MEN. 

To you my fellow Christians most earnestly do I appeal 
to be no longer a stumbling block in the way of sinners. 
God's cause has little to fear from those that are without; 
it is the weak and unstable and treacherous within, that 
are its real source of weakness. Gideon's army had to 
be sifted down from 32,000 to ouly 300 before it could be 
really effective. Another has well said that i; One reason 
why men are so unwilling to join the church is because the 
church is so ready to join the world. Men know that they 



108 brockton's perils. 

are not right, and long for a peace that they do not pos- 
sess ; but when they look on church members, whose reli- 
gion is a mere form, and who are driven for enjoyment 
to seek the husks and pomps and vanities of this world, 
they see nothing there to attract them and they stay away." 
There was never a greater mistake made than to think 
that you are to win the world to Christ by going over to 
the world. I have known wives and parents who took 
this view, but I have never known them to succeed in 
leading those for whom they made this sacrifice to Christ. 
Men are not won and saved in that way. It is when they 
see the contrast between the living Christian and them- 
selves, that they are most mightily affected. It is the 
heroic element that must be aroused in men, if you would 
save them. They despise shams and hypocrites. They 
despise a religion that cannot be distinguished from the 
worldliness by which they are surrounded and well nigh 
suffocated. They may coax you into these places, but in 
their hearts they think the less of you for going. How 
often have men sneered at the very ones they have them- 
selves led to do these very things. 

THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION. 

Christianity offers pleasures infinitely superior to what 
this world has to offer. If you have never gotten any- 
thing better than what this world has to offer then I beg 
of you seek until you find, for you have taken up with 
something that is not the genuine thing. But if you have 
gotten it, and if you do know the joy and peace and com- 
fort and blessedness of the believer, then I pray you do 
not go back to the weak and beggarly elements of the 
world. Do not, like the children of Israel in the wilder- 
ness, cry out against the bread from heaven. One may 
not greatly blame the poor prodigal, hungry and starving, 
away from his father's house, for longing for the husks 
that the swine did eat ; but to have him long for them after 
his return, while he was sitting at his father's bountiful 
table, that would be something passing belief. If you 
really do hanker after the world, the flesh and the devil, 
make it a very serious question with yourself whether 
you have not been entirely deceived about yourself; 
whether or not you have ever really and fully surrendered 
yourself to God, so as to be received of Him and made 
His child. \Ye have had here this winter those who had 



brockton's perils 109 

thought that they were Christians, and who had wondered 
that they had never found that of which the\ had heard 
others speak. They found at last that in the failure fully 
to yield all to Christ, in the determination that they 
would not give up these peculiar and treacherous forms 
of worldly pleasure, they had utterly failed to obtain the 
fulness of the blessing* God wanted to bestow upon them. 

When Ulysses would pass the sirens in safety, he stuffed 
the ears of his crew with wax, and had himself lashed to 
the rigging. By that outward restraint he saved himself 
and crew. But when Jason would pass that way, he took 
with him Orpheus, the God of music, and. having on board 
the nobler music, the meaner music of the sirens had no 
power. If you are where you need to stuff your ears with 
wax, or to be lashed to a mast in order not to be led away 
by the sirens, then do not rest until you have gotten on 
board that Jesus, who is able to so ravish you with His 
own charming music, that all the sirens in the world shall 
cease to attract you. There is a music and an attraction 
in genuine Christianity that satisfies the soul as nothing 
that this world can offer ever does. The soul was made 
for God; it will never be satisfied with less. Get your 
own soul satisfied, and then you shall be a power for the 
salvation of those who are now in constant peril. 

Perhaps I ought to stop, but I do wish to add just a few 
words more. John (1 Ep. 2 :15) says, speaking under the 
divine guidance of tli3 Holy Spirit, " If any man love the 
world, the love of the Father is not in him." James (4 :4) 
says, " The friendship of the world is enmity with God. 
TThosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the 
enemy of God." Paul says, (1 Tim. 5:6) " She that liveth 
in pleasure is dead while she lives.' 7 Jesus says (Matt. 
6:24) that " No man can serve two masters," and that it 
is our duty (Matt. 5:16) to "Let our light so shine before 
men, that they may see our good works and glorify our 
Father in heaven." There is danger of losing all by these 

COMPROMISES. 

1 do not know, and do not wish to know, how far one 
may backslide, how far one may go back to the world, 
and yet be saved. I read of some saved so as by fire, 
their works all being burned up, but I am sure there is 
in that direction great danger of losing one's own soul. 
Even if one is finallv saved, think of the loss. No 



110 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

treasure laid up in heaven. Nothing of reward. A 
pauper in heaven. To be sure that is better than not to 
be saved, but how much better to have the hundred-fold 
here, even though it be with persecutions, and the fulness 
of blessing over there. Balaam undertook to see how far 
he could go and be saved. He longed to die the death of 
the righteous. He would not on any account do that 
which he was certain would be his ruin, but, in his com- 
promise with the world, he seems to have gone too far, 
for he died fighting against the people of God. Let us 
beware not only lest we be deprived of all reward, but 
lest these pathways of temptation lead us so far astray 
that we lose our own souls, as well as peril the souls of 
others. 

I thank you for your patient attention to this more than 
usually long discourse. I did not see how, under the cir- 
cumstances, I could well say less. 



The Enterprise concluded its report of the sermon with 
these words: " The reverend gentleman preached almost 
an hour, and kept the attention of the congregation riveted 
upon him during the whole of the discourse. If any 
doubted his statements none could doubt the intense earn- 
estness of the preacher." 



brockton's perils. Ill 

XVIII. 
ADDITIONAL CRITICISMS, 



The next morning after the delivery of this sermon on 
Dancing and Theatre-going 1 , the Boston papers gave 
lengthly and generally fair reports. The local papers 
gave very full and careful reports. These reports were 
printed without comment, except that just quoted. The 
next day the Boston Globe had the following : 

Rev. J. K. Richardson of Brockton has been denounc- 
ing the theatre and dancing in the harshest kind of terms. 
The reverend gentleman appears to have been born about 
one hundred years too late. 

One can but smile at criticisms of that sort. 

The Enterprise also came out with the following crit- 
icism, the utter unfairness of which will be evident to 
those who have carefully read the sermon : 

We have no sympathy with Pastor Richardson's sweep- 
ing condemnation of the theatre and the ball room. Even 
with the aid of lascivious quotations that read like the 
prurient writings of one of those authors whose obscene 
works are under the ban of decent manhood and woman- 
hood, his screed upon dancing must fail of its purpose and 
simply shock and insult the hundreds of good and pure 
girls and women and honorable men in this city to whom 
dancing as a recreation is as innocent of wrong thoughts 
or impulses as is the church social. The impure in heart 
will find evil everywhere — in the home, the prayer meet- 
ing or the dancing hall. Because ministers have proved 
to be base and have made a scandal of religion should we 
condemn the clergy as being all base? Because the dance 
is an adjunct to the low dives of the great cities, and be- 
cause some evil-minded men may have debased the dance 
to their purpose of corrupting womankind, is dancing 
itself therefore to be denied to that great majority who 
engage in it with no thought of wrong, and with hearts 



112 brockton's perils. 

full of that lightness and gladness that must be felt by 
every healthy man or woman when their feet keep time 
to the rhythmic melody of the musicians? The assignation 
at the church meeting, and the lonely saunter home under 
the black mantle of night, may have more wrecked inno- 
cence to answer for than the dancing party, where every 
look and every action must challenge attention. But is 
the church itself to blame for this? The bigoted might 
say so. The broad-minded know better. 

We doubt if our clerical friend would refuse to read a 
Bible printed by the Lippincotts because that firm pub- 
lished Amelie Rivers' lustful " The Quick or the Dead." 
Apply the same measure to the theatre. Must good peo- 
ple deprive themselves of the delight and moral inspira- 
tion that comes from seeing a clean, wholesome play be- 
cause the manager permits a less desirable class of per- 
formances to be presented at other times on the same 
stage? One thing is assured — we have never seen or heard 
anything in any theatre more calculated to bring a blush 
to a modest cheek than were some of the sentences Pas- 
tor Richardson uttered from his pulpit last Sunday. 

The world was never better, sweeter or more tilled with 
the spirit of kindly brotherhood and Christian charity 
than it is to-day; and it will go on growing broader and 
still better, and the fanatics and the narrow-minded who 
cry out that dancing and the theatre are Satan's snares, 
the clergy corrupt and religion a living lie will fall like 
withered leaves by the wayside and be hurried into obliv- 
ion before the strong, sweet breath of Truth. 



In the above one can hardly fail to notice how carefully 
all reference to the facts cited is avoided, and how the 
whole strength of the criticism is spent on the question of 
the propriety of introducing an illustration, the truthful- 
ness of which is not questioned. It is said of lawyers that 
" When they have no case they spend their strength in 
abusing the other side," but it is also a well recognized 
fact that " Abuse is not argument." Any proper answer 
to the sermon must take cognizance of the facts cited. If 
it could be shown that a large proportion of the fallen 
women in the country were led into their life of shame 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 113 

through church attendance, there is no doubt but that this 
very paper would be quick to condem the churches, and 
in that case such condemnation would be justifiable . Why 
is it otherwise in the case of dancing' and theatre-going? 

The Gazette of April 21 told the following which is 
certainly suggestive along the line of this discussion : 

A small Brockton lad was taken by his father to the 
theatre matinee, and when a dance was being given by 
the female members of the company clad in not much of 
anything, the young man showed his bringing up by say- 
ing in a shrill voice: " Papa. I shant stay here unless you 
tell those women to go and dress themselves the way my 
mamma does." 

One can but think it would be well if the older lads 
were of the same opinion. 

March 13, the Enterprise had the following: 

Communications criticising Rev. Mr. Richardson's ser- 
mons continue to be received, but it seems to us that all 
has been said already that the matter deserves. Let us 
drop it now and give our attention to more edifying topics. 

The same week The American, Boston, had the follow- 
ing editorial reference to the whole matter : 

A mighty reformation work is going forward in Brock- 
ton, Mass., since the week spent in revival work there by 
Dr. Fulton. Rev. J. K. Richardson, pastor of the First 
Baptist church, has been putting in some telling blows in 
favor of higher Christian living. There has never been 
a time when Brockton was so tremendously stirred as in 
these da vs. 



14 



114 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

XIX. 
FOURTH REPLY. 



BAPTIST BELIEF! WHAT AND WHY? 

Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them 
into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost : teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. 

—Matt. 28:10, 20. 

Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. 

—John IS: 14. 

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and 
shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven : but 
whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the king- 
dom of heaven.— Matt. 5:19. 

In the criticisms that have been made upon the sermon 
delivered here four weeks ago on " Brockton's Perils/ 7 
this church and the denomination have been obliged to 
share to some extent. The criticisms on the denomination 
have revealed an ignorance concerning our fundamental 
views that has been to many of us a matter of surprise. 
In this sermon I shall not be able by any means to cover 
all the ground that I should be glad to go over. Time 
does not suffice. I simply confine myself to the main 
points about which criticism seems especially to gather, 
seeking particularly to set forth, in a bird's eye view, 
our position with reference to the ordinances, and the 
reasons for that position. 

Disobedience to the commands of our Lord does not 
necessarily involve the final loss of the soul. One may 
disobey in some things at least, and teach others a like 
disobedience, and yet be saved ; but it is not a salvation 
without loss. Even in least important matters it puts one 
in peril of being least in the kingdom of heaven. 

The first lesson for a soldier to learn, and it is the chief 
lesson of his life— the lesson without which he is unfit for 
the service, — is that it is his busi?iess to obey orders, no 
matter how great or little, how important or unimportant 
those orders may seem to him . Disobedience is an unpar- 
donable offence, and little or great affects the question not 



brockton's perils. 115 

in the slightest degree. Disobedience is disobedience, 
just as much in things least as in things greatest. There 
are and can be no non-essentials in matters of obedience. 
Baptist belief centers in the idea of simple, unquestion- 
ing, unselecting 

OBEDIENCE. 

In that one word lies all the reasons for our peculiarities. 
We have recently been told that "The bigoted christian 
practically holds that there are no non-essentials in Chris- 
tianity." I do not know exactly how far reaching the 
word Christianity may be in that case. But, bigoted or 
not, Baptists hold that there are and can be, no non-essen- 
tials in the commands of our Lord, unless, indeed, one 
means by non-essentials things not utterly fatal to salva- 
tion . That men may disobey and be saved, we have already 
said. It is the statement of one of the texts chosen. But we 
know of no right to elect which of Christ's commands we 
will obey and which we will not obey. T\ r e know of none 
of his commands that we dare say it is safe to disobey. For 
us it is enough that our divine Lord, who has the full and 
perfect right to command us, has laid upon us the execu- 
tion of any order. It is not for us to decide on its rela- 
tive importance. 

Ours " not to make reply," 

Ours " not to reason why." 

It is for us to obey each order as though the issues of life 
and death hung upon it. T\ r e may not see any reason for 
the order, it may seem to us that something else would be 
better, but it is not for us to decide such questions. It is 
ours to obey. TTe cannot tell why God commanded his 
ancient Israel to offer a red heifer. It may seem to some 
of us that a white bullock would have been decidedly pre- 
ferable, but it was the business of the Israelites to offer 
exactly what was commanded, a red heifer, not a bullock 
of any color. Nor could they offer anything else that they 
thought w T ould do just as well, or better. King Saul 
thought he could do better than to execute the order given 
him, but he was told that i{ to obey was better than sacri- 
fice and to hearken than the fat of rams." Moses was 
given the patterns of all things connected with the tem- 
ple. Perhaps many an architect thought he could greatly 
improve on the plans presented, but Moses was strictly 
commanded to " make all things according to the pattern 



116 . brockton's perils. 

shown him in the mount." In no other way would it have 
been God's temple. In no other way than by strict obe- 
dience can we keep the ordinance of God so that it shall be 
God's ordinance and not man's rite. Jesus is " the author 
of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." We 
maybe saved in disobedience, but it is a* very serious 
matter to disobey. We are held his friends on condition 
of keeping Ms commandments. 

We choose to have God's friendship and approval be- 
fore that of all the world. We choose to have Him say 
to us ''Well done, good and faithful servant/'' even if all 
the world should unite in the cry of " bigot," "narrow- 
minded," " crazy/' "fanatic," "born a 100 years too late." 
In the thought of rendering as perfect obedience to the 
commands of our Master as is possible for us, lies the key 
to all the peculiarities of our belief and practice as Baptists. 
From the days of the apostles until now, we have been 
persecuted, hated, sneered at, or decried as bigots and 
fanatics, and yet wonderfully honored as a peculiar peo- 
ple zealous of obedience to the commands of our Lord. 
If there is a people on the footstool that ought to be hon- 
ored of all men, it is the Baptists. Through ail the ages 
they have been found loyal to God and his word at "all 
hazards, and at all costs. Untold thousands of them have 
laid down their lives for the truth. ]So sacrifice has by 
them been deemed too great for the cause of truth and 
righteousness. Imprisonment, torture, death has not led 
them to yield one iota from the things commanded them 
of their Lord. They would neither add to nor take from. 
They could be neither frightened nor cajoled into becom- 
ing disloyal to Christ. ~No sickly sentimental ism has had 
power to weaken their allegiance, as a people, to the gveat 
head of the church. They have withstood every form of 
temptation, and have gone on contending earnestly for 
" the-once-for-all-delivered-faith." In their hands the 
ordinances have remained intact, as originally delivered, 
the requirements neither increased nor diminished. To 
the world they have brought the boon of civil and reli- 
gious liberty. They have preserved Christianity from 
committing suicide through an unregenerated church 
membership ; for, as Joseph Cook said on the platform of 
Tremont Temple, " The world owes to the Baptists the 
preservation of the idea of a converted church member- 
ship." Words that will not seem too strong to one who 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 117 

knows the history of infant baptism, unrestrained by the 
opposition of Baptist influence. 

Of course Baptists have had, and still have their Judases 
and their hypocrites. Alexander the coppersmith, Dio- 
trephes who loved the pre-eminence, Hymeneus and Alex- 
ander who made shipwreck of the faith, were the proto- 
types of many a modern professor, as were also the men 
and women who made trouble in the churches of Perga- 
mos, Thyatira and Laodicea. We do not, when we speak 
of the body of Baptists, mean to include every individual 
member. We speak of them as a great whole. As a 
whole they have stood, and still stand, for fall and 
perfect obedience to the commands, unchanged and un- 
changeable, of Him whom alone they acknowledge as 
their Master and Lord, the divine head of that body of 
which they are the members. 

The world at large probably knows the Baptists best in 
their relation to 

THE TWO ORDINANCES 

which our Lord left to be observed until he conies again 
to close up the present order of things. Certain it is that 
here the chief criticisms now fall. When one stops to think 
about it, it is by no means wonderful that a body stand- 
ing for the obedience of the faith should find themselves 
the special exponents of the ordinances which are the 
great speaking symbols of that faith. There are but two 
ordinances. They are, of necessity, the gospel in mina- 
ture. Unchanged, the faith cannot but remain substan- 
tially one. To subvert the faith, these must of necessity 
be subverted. Why should not the battle largely rage 
around these symbols. In time of war, it is the symbol 
of the government, — the flag, — around which thebattle 
always rages. It is that symbol which men will not see 
changed. Not a stripe of red or white, not a star from 
the ground of blue, not a change in its mode was to be 
allowed. That was the central truth around which we 
waged our last w^ar. The other flag had its stars and 
stripes, its red and white and blue, but 

" Their flag was hut a rag, 

Ours was the true oue." 

It was a matter of a flag, and yet it was the very integ- 
rity and authority of the government that was at stake. 
Did anv man wonder when that cry was echoed and re- 



118 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

echoed through the length and breadth of the land, " If 
any man hauls down the American flag, shoot him on the 
spot." It was a matter of the utmost concern that the 
symbol should remain unfurled and untouched in its com- 
plete integrity. Is it any less important that the symbols 
of Christianity should remain un tampered with? We, to 
be sure, do not use the weapons of this world, but we are 
under no less obligation to contend earnestly, more earn- 
estly, if that be possible, for the obedience of Christ, than 
for the obedience required by our government. Let no 
man think it so wonderfully strange that we are so very 
particular that the two ordinances of the gospel should be 
preserved in their integrity. 

This our position is often misunderstood and misrep- 
resented. Sometimes it seems to us that it is purposely 
misrepresented. But, whether purposely or not, it cer- 
tainly is very grossly misrepresented, and that misrepre- 
sentation is very widely accepted as the truth. Take, for 
example, our position with reference to 

THE ORDINANCE OF BAPTISM. 

Some represent that it is a mere question of much or lit- 
tle water ; that it is only a question of one or another form 
of administering the same thing ; that it is a conflict over 
a non-essential, a battle over a thing that is in reality of 
no consequence. We are accused of making too much of 
baptism, of making it a saving ordinance, of even holding 
that a man cannot be a christian without adopting a cer- 
tain mode of baptism. It has been recently affirmed from 
one of our pulpits that " It is not uncommon to hear that 
a man cannot be a christian without he adopted a certain 
mode of baptism." Who ever heard any one affirm any- 
thing of that kind? I declare it to be so uncommon that I 
never heard anybody make any such affirmation, nor do I 
know of any one who believes anything of that kind. 

Who is it that makes the most of baptism, a Baptist or 
aPedo-Baptist? One who believes that only those who give 
evidence of being truly born of God should be baptized, 
or one who believes that the standing of an unconscious 
infant before God is altered by baptism? 

To me there came a messenger one day asking me to 
visit at once a family with a sick and dying child. I went. 
To my surprise I found that they wanted me to baptize 
the infant. I asked why. The answer was to the effect 



brockton's perils 119 

that it was going* to die and they wanted it saved. But, 
I asked, what has baptism to do with its salvation ? They 
seemed to think that it might have all to do with it. I 
told the in that such was the Roman Catholic teaching, but 
that it was not according to the bible. 1 told them that 
the baby did not need baptism and could not properly be 
the recipient of baptism, because baptism belonged to be- 
lievers only, and was the expression, in symbol, of their 
personal and voluntary death to the old life, and of their 
resurrection to the new. I told them that in the work of 
Jesus Christ ample provision was made for the salvation 
of all who died in infancy, so that even the heathen infants 
were saved by the atoning work of the Son of God, and 
that we could do nothing to help or hinder it. I showed, 
as best I could, the folly and wrong of baptizing those who 
had not come to the age of responsibility. But the family 
was so full of their superstition, so full of the idea that 
somehow the mere act of baptism would save the child, 
that, as soon as I was gone, the horse was driven as fast 
as possible for the brother who seems to think we make 
too much of baptism. He was hurried to the home and 
there performed what he called the act of baptism, thus 
confirming the belief of that mother in its efficacv to save 
the child. 

Why are infants ever baptized? The Roman Catholic 
church answers: that it %i cleanses us from original sin, 
makes us Christians and children of God, and heirs of 
heaven." The Episcopal church answers by saying, in the 
act, " Seeing, beloved, that this child is now regenerated 
and made an heir to the kingdom of heaven. " The other 
Pedo-Baptist churches say as little as possible about it, 
but keep up the practice as they derived it from the Ro- 
manists. A standard Presbyterian publication in my pos- 
sesion declares, however, that in the baptism of an infant 
God i; ratines that gracious covenant in which he promises 
to take a special interest in the children of his people — 
to take them to himself if they die in infancy — or, if he 
spare them to riper years * * * to bestow on them all 
th e blessin f/s q f sa I ration . ' ' Xo w who is making the most 
of the ordinance of baptism? Those who make it a symbol, 
applicable only to those who have already been born of 
the spirit, or those who make it a means of saving those 
who have had simply a natural birth into this world? 
Those who hold that baptism cannot save anybody, or 



120 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

those who hold that baptism will alter the standard oj an 
unconscious infant before God ? 

WHAT IS THE BAPTIST POSITION ABOUT BAPTISM? 

It is very simple. It is this : Christ has seen fit to insti- 
tute the ordinance of baptism as a symbol of his gospel; 
teaching, as Paul very carefully sets forth in the sixth of 
Romans, the great fundamental change that marks the 
transition into his kingdom, that of death and burial to 
the old life and of resurrection to a neio life hid with 
Christ in God, involving also the doctrine of a resurrection 
of the body. As his friends, we believe ourselves bound 
to preserve that symbol in its integrity. We deem it 
essential that it should be so preserved. Paul, in the same 
chapter to which I just now referred (Rom. vi. 17), tells 
us that baptism is "the form" (Margin, Revised Version) , 
literally " mould" of doctrine. In other words, baptism 
is the mould in which doctrine is cast and shaped. Men 
say that baptism is a mere form. Granted that it is, then, 
if that form is " the mould of doctrine," how very impor- 
tant it is that that form should be the correct one. If it 
is a mere form and you destroy the form, what is left? 
It is a serious matter to alter the form of standard mea- 
sures. It is a serious matter to alter the mould in which 
standard weights are cast. It is something- much more 
serious to alter the mould of the doctrine of Christ. If 
we would not permit our flag to be altered, much less 
ought we to permit the alteration of the symbols of Christ. 
Let us not talk about essentials and non-essentials in such 
serious matters. It is our business to observe the 
form delivered, as Paul says of those to whom he wrote : 
Ct Thanks be to God that, whereas ye were servants of 
sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form, 
(mould), of doctrine (teaching) whereunto ye were deliv- 
ered." It is not a question of much or little water ; a very 
small baptistery will do as well as the whole ocean. It is 
the burial in water and the emersion therefrom that we 
insist upon. It is not a question of the choice of forms, 
for the form is itself the baptism . There cannot be 
baptism without immersion, for that is the very meaning 
of the word, the very significance of the symbol. Take 
down your unabridged Webster and look for the word 
baptism , and you will rind that he tells you it comes from 
a Greek word that means " dip in water." Of course he 



BROCKTON'S TERILS. 121 

goes on to tell you what is now its usage among English 
speaking people. Many now call that baptism which 
bears not the slightest resemblance to the significance of 
the original word. But it was the original word, with 
its own meaning, that Christ used when he commanded 
this ordinance and commissioned his disciples to baptize 
all whom they had brought to discipleship. It is this 
original word, the original command of Christ, with which 
we all have to do, if we are seeking the real meaning of the 
ordiance commanded. There exists one English transla- 
tion, that of the American Bible Union, that has trans- 
lated this word. For that reason it has been stigmatized 
as " a Baptist Bible." A translated Bible is a Baptist 
Bible we know. Other versions leave the word untrans- 
lated. It will not do to translate it, when so many are 
practicising something so utterly unlike the thing com- 
manded. But if we go to the Greek lexicons for the 
meaning of the word, as we do for the meaning of every 
other Greek word, we shall have no difficulty. They are 
a unit. They give no meaning that can by any possibility 
cover more than one thing, immersion, or the dipping of 
the person in water. Just that and nothing else. When 
Christ has commanded us to go and make disciples, im- 
mersing them, what right have we to go and sprinkle, or 
pour, or lay the wet lingers on the head and say that we 
have obeyed the commission laid upon us. 

Without knowing the meaning of the original word, 
would anybody have any difficulty in understanding that 
the New Testament way was an immersion, if left simply 
to read the New Testament without note or comment? 
Can any man read the passages relating to the baptisms 
in the New Testament and not be convinced that the way 
then practiced was immersion? No one doubts that the 
ancient way was immersion. No church ever hesitates to 
receive an immersed person as truly baptized. Every- 
body knows that immersion is baptism. The only possi- 
ble question is, are these other things also baptism? No- 
body professes to find them in the New Testament, where, 
in the. nature of the case, they should be found if found 
at all. We doubt if anybody feels quite as certain that 
these other things are baptism, as they do that immersion 
is baptism. I once asked the President of one of our 
New England Congregational colleges, if he felt just as 
sure that these other things were baptism as he did that 



122 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

the immersion was bapsism, and he finally confessed that 
lie would not like to say that he did. How could he as a 
Greek scholar? That raises the question how it happens 
that good scholars clo yet accept these various rites in the 
place of the ordinance? Usually it is on the ground that 
it is a matter of no consequence. They do not trouble 
themselves about it. Some years ago I was on a steamer 
with a personal friend and a distinguished Doctor of 
Divinity in a Pedo-Baptist body. We were discussing the 
translation of the American Bible Union New Testament, 
which had then recently appeared. He asked me what I 
thought of it, etc.. and finally I asked him this question: 
"Doctor, you are a Greek scholar and a learned man, now 
I want to know how in the world you get any sprinkling 
or pouring into, or out of, the New Testament baptism?" 
His reply was, " Forty years ago, when I was in a theolog- 
ical seminary, I became troubled about that very question, 
but I soon made up my mind that it was a matter of no 
consequence, and I dropped the whole matter and have 
never examined it since. I do not know enough about it 
to discuss the question with you." I could not help say- 
ing, in reply, " Doctor, I admire your honesty toward me, 
but have you been equally honest toward God, when, by 
your own confession, you have been in the ministry for 
forty years without looking to see what one half of your 
commission means?" His answer was, "I don't like your 
close communion." We will discuss that question pres- 
ently, but let me add a few words more on this point of 
baptism. It was an honest examination of the New Tes- 
tament that led Judson and Rice, in separate vessels on 
their way to Burma as Congregationalist missionaries, to 
become Baptists. It was the study of the Greek New 
Testament that led Dr. Horatio B. Hackett, one of the 
first Greek scholars that America has produced, to leave 
the Congregationalists and become a Baptist. It cost each 
of these men very much to take this step. For Judson it 
was the stranding of himself utterly on a foreign shore. 
For Hackett it was the giving up of his fondest anticipa- 
tions. Not a great many years ago, the revision of the 
French Testament was undertaken. One of the most 
learned men of France was pressed to undertake the 
leadership of the movement, the presidency of the com- 
mission . He did not wish to do it. Finally he consented, 
but before so doing he got down on his knees before God 



bkockton's perils. 123 

and asked Him to help him, promising', at the same time, 

that lie would make the most exact translation of every 
word into the French language that it was possible for 
him to make. He entered on the work. He came to this 
word baptize. He translated it. When the committee 
met together, he read his translation. At once they said 
it would not do to translate that word. " Is it not a cor- 
rect translation ?" " Yes. but it will make trouble." Then 
he told them what he had promised God, and declared 
that he did not dare to do otherwise. Later another ques- 
tion arose in his mind. If the word meant immerse, as 
he had translated it, had he ever obeyed the command of 
his Lord? He was obliged to answer that he had not. 
"Would lie now do it? That was a crushing- question, but 
he finally decided that he ought. He went to see our be- 
loved brother Van Meter, from whose lips I had this 
story. He asked Van Meter to baptize him. But Van Meter 
said to him : * • Do you realise what it is going to cost you ? 
You will be thrown out of all your positions of honor, 
you will lose your income, you will lose your friends, you 
will be ostracised. I fear you have not counted the cost. 
Go back and examine the matter and yourself well before 
you take such a step." He did so. Later he came again 
and said, in substance: " Last night, while I was think- 
ing of this matter, my little daughter sang, i Dare to be a 
Daniel, Dare to stand alone." I said to myself, do I dare? 
I thought it all over, prayed over it, weighed all it meant, 
and I at last fully decided that I would dare even to stand 
alone. I must be baptized." Then Bro. Van Meter went 
out with him to the beautiful lake near by and in its limpid 
waters, beneath the clear blue sky. buried in baptism that 
distinguished man, loyal to his convictions, loyal to this 
command of his Lord. It is not a small thing to obey the 
Lord. 

But it may be that some one will say, have not some 
Baptists gone over to other denominations. They have ! 
But did you ever know one to go because he had discov- 
ered by his study of the word of God that something 
other than immersion was baptism? They do not go that 
way, nor on that account. They may, like Dean Stanley, 
say that while immersion is the ancient way, we are yet 
warranted in improving thereon.* They may, like so 

*The pastor of the Presbyterian church in East Boston, Mass., while I 
was pastor of the Central Square Baptist church, preached a sermon that 
was highly commended by his people and was published in the Boston 
Traveller, m which he took substantially this ground of Dean Stanley. 



124 brockton's perils. 

many other Pedo-Baptists, say that it is a matter of no 
importance. They may, like others, go over under the 
express stipulation that they shall not be required to ad- 
minister anything but immersion, and not even that to 
infants. In other words, they do not go because they 
have a new and different interpretation of the command 
to baptize, but because they have ceased to maintain the 
Baptist position of the importance of obedience to the 
thing commanded of the Lord. Main', in these other 
churches, either do not believe that they have been bap- 
tized, or have serious doubts about it. One man, for 
more than twenty years the chief office-bearer in one of 
these churches, told me that he could never pass a pool of 
water without the words coming to him, " See here is 
water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?' 7 It is not 
uncommon for others to give me a similar testimony. A 
Congregationalist minister in a neighboring town, on a 
recent Sunday, so I am told, declared that he had become 
convinced that only immersion is baptism, and found that 
some of his leading members were of the same opinion. 
Our point, as Baptists, is simply one of implicit loyalty 
to our Lord, of simple obedience to that which he has 
commanded. \Ye dare not substitute any man-made 

RITE FOR THE ORDINANCE OF OUR LORD. 

But it is time that we turned our attention to that one 
great stumbling block, 

CLOSE COMMUNION. 

There is in my possession a reprinted poem, I know not 
Iioav old, that well describes the attitude of multitudes 
toward the Baptists, to-day, as well as in the time that this 
poem was written. I quote just a few lines : 

" But close communion is the thing, 

In which each writer thrusts his sting ; 

This seems to be the bug-bear of the world, 

At which their fiercest shafts are hurled. 

What ! bar the table of the Lord, 

From Christians who revere His word, 

Because in your beclouded eyes, 

They do not lawfully baptize ! 

Though errors plenteously abound 

O'er all the Aua-Baptist ground, 

Yet on this error most of all, 

Their pelting censures oftenest fall ; 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 125 

At this the} 7 aim their greatest force, 
This is the butt of all discourse. 
Thousands are often heard to say. 
We don't despise your watery way ; 
We entertain a high respect 
For many of your ' little sect;' 
And with them feel a Christian union, 
But can't endure your close communion." 

This no doubt expresses a very general sentiment. 
Again and again, in discussions on baptism, have I had 
the brother practically yield the ground on that matter and 
turn on me with, 4; I don't like your close communion !" 

Were I to select my own word, I should use, as would 
doubtless all of our way of thinking, the term "re- 
stricted" communion, rather than " close " communion, 
or, what would seem to us much more scriptural and fit- 
ting " The restrictions of the Lord's supper;" the term 
communion giving a wrong idea to many people, since it 
is used in the New Testament solely with reference to the 
relation between the believer and his Lord, in the partak- 
ing of the elements. But we will not trouble ourselves 
particularly over the words that are applied to us by 
those who are opposed to us. What I want specially to 
note is, that 

ALL EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS BELIEVE IN AND PRACTICE 
RESTRICTED, OR CLOSE, COMMUNION. 

In all my own experience I have never held a conver- 
sation but with one man wdio was in favor of unrestricted 
communion, and when I asked him to what church he be- 
longed, he said " To no church except that of the invisible 
kingdom ." He said that he believed that everybody, good 
or bad, the most wicked as w 7 ell as the best christian, 
should have the privilege of coming to the table of the 
Lord. 

This man w r as evidently a believer in open communion, 
or the unrestricted attendance at and participation in the 
Lord's supper; but I have never met any other like him. 
I know^ of no one among what w^e are accustomed to call 
evangelical church members, that would adopt such a 
view. They all believe that a line should be drawn, and 
is drawn, somewhere. The point to be determined is, 
where is the line to be drawn? The charge of close com- 
munion, against us, therefore, comes with rather bad 



126 brockton's perils. 

grace from those who themselves also believe in and prac- 
tice restricted, or close communion. 

Moreover it is generally agreed that this is 

THE LORD'S TABLE AND NOT OURS. 

If this is the Lord's table and not ours, then it follows that it is 
His prerogative, and not oars, to determine the conditions of com- 
ing to that table. We have no right to alter or amend to 
suit ourselves or anybody else. Men might as well have 
asked Moses to change the plan of the temple, or the chil- 
dren of Israel to alter the character of the commanded 
offering. The alteration would have changed these things 
from God's ordinances to man-made rites. To alter in 
the least the conditions of the Lord's supper, is to make 
it cease to be His supper and to make it something else. 
When men, therefore, ask us to change the restrictions to 
the supper, we can only say that it is not in our power. 
This is the Lord's table, not ours. We have no authority 
except to observe that which has been commanded. We 
are servants, not lords. We can only obey orders. It is 
not ours to legislate. Those who want a change should 
go to head-quarters and get Jesus Christ to make the 
change. 

Let me, if possible, make this still plainer. Suppose 
that a servant of mine, after I had told her to prepare my 
table for a compairy of invited guests, should go and seat 
a company of her friends at that table. She might ex- 
plain that her friends w T ere with her and she did not want 
to be so unfriendly and unsocial as not to invite them to 
the table. She might explain that she set the table and 
thought that she had a right to ask her friends to eat of it. 
She might say that she did not think it was very kind in 
me not to invite her friends ; or any one of a multitude 
of other excuses, but that would not alter the fact that 
she had no right to do this and would get herself into 
trouble thereby. She might even say that I did not for- 
bid her to bring her friends there, but my reply w^ould 
be, Did I invite them? I am master of my own table, and 
no one has a right there except he is invited by myself or 
those whom I have authorized to extend my invitation. 

Our business, as Christians, is to interpret and obey the 
commands and invitations of the Lord. We are to make 
disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them to observe all 
tilings ivhatsoever he has commanded. We are interpre- 



brockton's perils. 127 

tors and servants. Our business is summed up in the one 

AVOrd — OBEDIENCE . 

THE BAPTIST POSITION 

here, as in the other ordinance, is one of simple obedience 
to the command of Him who instituted the ordinance and 
laid down its conditions. Mark that it is not a question of 
who is forbidden. Xo one is forbidden in direct terms. 
Dogs aud cats are not forbidden. The profane and the 
vile are not forbidden. Christ did not touch the question 
from that side. There was no need. When I send out 
invitations to a supper at my house. I do not need to no- 
tify those who are not invited that they are not to come. 
The invitation to those who are to come is a sufficient 
exclusion of all others. The question, therefore, is not 
one of who is excluded, but of who is invited. 

THE ONLY QUESTION AT ISSUE 

between us and others, is the question of whom Christ has 
in cited? or, to put it in another form, what conditions has 
he made known as necessary to coming- around his table? 
It is a question of interpretation. Generally speaking, 
all evangelical Christians agree that three conditions are to 
be met by all who are to be regarded as included in the terms of 
Christ's invitation to His table, viz., regeneration, baptism, 
and orderly walk. The difference between us and oth- 
ers lies in our different interpretation of these three con- 
ditions. E. g.. those who hold that a child is regenerated 
in the very act of baptism, may confirm him, as soon as 
they think that he can be held responsible for his walk, and 
admit him to the second ordinance. If it be, as between us 
and them, a question of greater or less degree of closeness 
the terms of admission to the Lord's table, it might seem 
that these people, that baptize babies and yet do not admit 
them to the Lord's supper, even while in some sense mem- 
bers of their church, are closer than ice. We do admit 
cdl our own members so long as they do not so walk as to 
require discipline, but these keep their own members from 
the table for many years simply because they are not yet 
responsible for their walk. In other cases, where they 
will not admit that baptism does regenerate the child, 
they wait for conversion before admiting to the second 
ordinance. They require both terms, but reverse the com- 
manded order, baptizing first and discipling afterwards. 



128 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

THE REAL QUESTION 

is What constitutes regeneration, baptism, and orderly walk? 
For convenience we divide it into three questions. In . 
Baptist belief regeneration is always and necessarily con- 
ditioned on the voluntary and definite yielding* 6f the 
personality to God, which constitues that belief on the 
8011 of God that assures one of eternal life. It is that 
voluntary receiving of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, 
with which he gives one power to become a child of God, 
giving- even to as many as do thus believe on his name. 
These are they who are born, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. In Bap- 
tist belief, baptism is the immersion of such a believer, or 
regenerated person, in water into the name of the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost. The immersion of an unbeliever is 
no baptism. The administration of some man-made rite, 
even though it be called baptism and be done in the name 
of the triune God, is no baptism. 

In Baptist belief, an orderly walk is such a life among 
men as does not require church discipline. Whatever 
places one under the discipline of the church, at the same 
time properly deprives him of the privilege of the Lord's 
table. Anything that ought to require discipline should 
at the same time require absence from the table. 

ALL OUR CLOSENESS 

consists in clinging close to the teachings of our Saviour 
and of the New Testament; consists in our close defini- 
tion of the three terms of coming to the table, prescribed 
by the Lord himself, viz., regeneration, baptism and 
orderly walk. In that sense we certainly are close com- 
munionists. Does anybody think that we ought to be 
otherwise ? 

Around these two ordinances, centers the whole orb of 
Christian truth. These ordinances changed or unchanged, 
the teachings of the word will be changed or unchanged 
to suit the condition of the symbols that are the gospel in 
miniature. Baptists are therefore distinguished for their 
perfect loyalty to the simple word of God, and their utter 
rejection of all traditions of men. They have no common 
creed, except the New Testament, and yet they are the 
marvel of the world for their great unity in all matters 
of faith and practice. A unit on the ordinances has made 



brockton's perils. 129 

these millions a unit on all the doctrines of the word of 
God. This fact, when one stops to think about it, is very 
remarkable. The one great question of the day is, how 
to bring* Christians into a practical unity of faith. Does 
not this fact point, as a clear indicator, toward the prac- 
tical solution? Let Christians be true to the symbols of 
the faith, the two ordinances, as they were delivered, and 
their faith will come into substantial unity on all other 
points. And yet Baptists are accustomed to emphasize 
the fact that it is not even the ordinances on which they 
lay greatest stress. It is rather on the church, that such 
ordinances imply, i. e. a church whose membership is com- 
posed only of persons truly regenerated and loyal to the 
word of God, of obedient believers. A change in the ordi- 
nance of baptism, and especially a change in the subjects 
of that ordinance, changes the entire character of the 
church itself and opens the way to all sorts of errors and 
evils. Infant baptism lays the foundation for national 
hierarchies ; for union of church and state ; for depriva- 
tion of the rights of conscience and the admission of per- 
secution. Where universally practiced it surely and speed- 
ily abolishes all distinction between the church and the 
world and lays the foundation for untold errors and evils. 
For its legitimate fruits, look where it has had ample scope 
and see what its effects have been. It has destroyed the 
spirituality of the church, uprooted the fundamental 
principles of the gospel, and resulted in a multitude 
of infidels and atheists. In our own land we do not see 
the full natural and legitimate results of infant baptism. 
Baptist influence has here been too strong, and the idea 
of a converted church membership has been preserved. 
But, to use in substance the words of another, " Where on 
the green earth has Christianity anything more than a 
name, if on that spot infant baptism has not been held in 
check by the Baptist protest ?" 

Loyalty to the ordinances reaches out in a great variety 
of other ways which we may not now stop even to men- 
tion, but allow me just to refer to its results in 

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

Another has well said that " Baptists did not stumble 
upon religious liberty. It is no mere accident that wher- 
ever Baptist views have prevailed, and to the extent to 
which thev have prevailed, men have been left to worship 
15 " 



130 brockton's perils. 

God according to the dictates of their own conscience, 
with none to molest or make them afraid. Soul freedom 
as surely comes from Baptist principles as day comes with 
the rising sun. It is the inevitable logical outgrowth of 
the doctrine that each must hear for himself, repent for 
himself, believe for himself, confess Christ for himself, 
and be baptized for himself — that as we come into the 
world one by one, so we must go to Christ one by one 
for mercy, and at last go one by one out of the world to 
be judged according to the deeds done in the body. The 
doctrine of a regenerated church-membership, with its 
basis in the written word, like the light of the sun, goes 
everywhere, and everywhere opens the way for the 
highest civil and religious liberty." 

I trust I have said enough for you to understand what 
this principle of obedience means, and why we Baptists 
stand, as we do, so tenaciously for the ordinances as they 
were originally delivered by the Lord, believing that they 
are to be kept unchanged and unchangeable until Christ 
comes again to finish his work and receive his kingdom. 
We do not call a soldier a bigot because he insists on the 
principle of obedience. Why should a Christian be called 
a bigot because he is loyal to the great commission laid by 
the Lord Jesus upon all His disciples? Above all, let no 
man be deterred from obedience to his Lord by threats or 
flatteries, by hopes of preferment or fears of loss. This 
brief life will soon be over. Soon we shall stand in the 
presence of the King. Then we shall not care what our 
fellows have thought and said about us. Our only con- 
cern will be our standing before the Lord Jesus Christ, 
the judge of all. May God help us so to obey His commands 
that He shall there acknowledge us His friends ; so to 
observe and teach, even the least of his commandments, 
that our reward shall be the greatest possible in the king- 
dom of heaven. 

This sermon was not reported as fully as were the oth- 
ers ; but it so happened that one of the local papers pub- 
lished a very good report of the earlier part of the ser- 
mon, while the other gave quite a good report of its clos- 
ing portion. So far as the author is aware, no comments 
appeared in print save that the Gazette mentioned it edi- 
torially as a very able address. Privately many pleasant 
things were said at the time, and later the sermon was 
heard from in a way calculated to make the pastor's heart 
more than glad. 



brockton's perils. 131 

XX. 

THE OUTCOME. 



Naturally the question arises. What has been the out- 
come of all this discussion and warfare? As yet it may be 
impossible to answer that question very fully ; but there 
have already appeared some very marked results, among 
which may be mentioned the fact that different individuals 
have since come to the pastor declaring that they had 
thereby been led to a better and nobler life; others, that 
they had been encouraged to take a bolder stand for the 
truth; others still, that they had experienced the good 
effects in their places of work and of business. The dis- 
cussions of these discourses among all classes, appear to 
have tended to confirm the words of the preacher so that 
public sentiment was quickened not a little in the right 
direction. From a denominational standpoint there was 
also a good effect. Some came to the denomination as a 
result. Among these a very notable case was that of the 
General Secretary of the Y. M. C. A . He had formerly 
been a Baptist, but had never been well grounded in the 
faith, having always been inclined to open communion 
so-called. After coining to this city, he joined the First 
Congregationalist church and entered heartily into sym- 
pathy with that denomination. This discussion, so he 
says, was one of the first things that called his attention 
to his fundamental mistake. Other things came in to help 
matters along. As the result, he came out a clear and 
decided Baptist. He goes to the Xewton Theological 
Institution this fall to study for the Baptist ministry. 
Looking at it from every possible standpoint, the result 
seems to have been wholly good and not evil. God has 
wonderfully owned and blessed the honest effort to preach 
his word faithfully and to warn sinners of the dangers that 
are actually besetting them. In the above statement, the 
author believes that he has expressed, not only the con- 
viction of his own mind, but also that of all the members 
of the church of which he is pastor, and of many outside 
of that church. It has been a constant surprise andgrat- 



132 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

ification to the pastor to find how many outside of his 
own church were favorably impressed* with the course 
taken. He gives this record of the whole matter to the 
world in printed form in the hope that still more may 
thereby be accomplished for the cause of truth and right- 
eousness and God. 



XXI. 
BROCKTOX AXD THE BAPTISTS. 



Before laying down the pen. it seems fitting that a few 
words should be added concerning the city of Brockton 
and the work that has been done therein by Baptists. 

Brockton is the great men's shoe city of Massachusetts. 
Brockton has had a phenominal growth. In 1880 it had 
about 13,000 inhabitants. The present census gives 
about 28,000, or more than double that of ten years ago. 
Only a small proportion of this increase is of foreign 
birth. Of the foreign element a large portion is Swede, 
the very best class of immigrants. There is a small body 
of French, a larger body of Irish. The provinces contri- 
bute a goodly quota, hardly to be distinguished from the 
native born population. The large majority of our citi- 
zens were born in the States. Xaturaily a large portion 
of all the people work in the hundred shoe factories of 
the city ; but that number is now largely supplemented by 
other classes of working and business men. New indus- 
tries are constantly locating here and are earnestly encour- 
aged. Our population is made up almost entirely of 
young men and women of that great middle class that does 
the most of the world's work and furnishes the best of the 
material for carrying forward the Redeemer's kingdom. 
The standard of intelligence and morality is probably as 
high here as in any city of the kind in the country. These 
men and women are enthusiastic and, as a rule, generous 
with their means. They form a grand body of men and 
women to work with and, when soundly converted, they 
make a mighty force for God. Yet we have the bad with 
the good; and Brockton, like other cities, has its perils, 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. loo 

Thirteen years ago there were few Baptists and no Bap- 
tist organization in Brockton. Now there are four regu- 
lar Baptist churches and one Free Baptist. Of the four 
Baptist churches, one is a Swede church. The First church 
lias fostered this Swede church and has been the mother 
of the other two Baptist churches. Yet the First church 
now has a membership of over 340 : a church and grounds 
paid for, and owes no man anything but to love one 
another. Its members have denied themselves and the 
home church many things in order to have the missions 
prosper, and both home church and missions have pros- 
pered marvelously. The Xorth church, growing from a 
meeting held under an apple tree, has a neat chapel and 
commodious grounds, with but a small debt remaining. 
It has more than trebled its membership since the present 
pastor came to them a little more than two years ago. 
The South church. Warren Avenue,, has also prospered 
wonderfully. They have a larger and more expensive 
meeting house than the first church, likely to be soon com- 
pleted with but little debt. From a Sunday school and a 
mission that about three years ago seemed almost too 
weak to live, they have come to be a strong working 
church with a goodly membership. The First church 
finds itself straightened for room to do its regular work 
and is now raising the money to purchase an adjoining 
property to enable it to enlarge. How it is to meet the 
amount needed for such enlargement it does not as yet 
see, but it trusts that the good hand of its God, that has 
so marvellously led it thus far. will still be upon it for 
good and will open the way for all necessary enlargement : 
that, having watered others, it will also itself be watered. 
It is one of the best churches in the world, and is pre- 
eminently helpful to the young. It believes in being per- 
fectly loyal to its Divine Head in all things, and in attempt- 
ing to obey the Great Commission: to seek to make disci- 
ples of all, baptizing those who become such and teaching 
them to observe all things commanded by their Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. It knows how to deny itself, how 
to give and how to work. It has sent one noble worker 
into the Home Mission work, Miss Lillian Boberts. a 
teacher in "Way land Seminary, Washington, D.C.:and 
another grand worker into the foreign field, Miss Jennie 
F. Stewart. Prome. Burma. 



134 BROCKTON'S PERILS. 

XXII. 
DENOMINATIONAL STATISTICS. 



The latest accessible figures for the totals of different 
denominations in the United States are as follows : 

Baptists, 3,070,047 ; Anti-Mission Baptists, 45,000 ; Free 
Will Baptists, 114,774; Seventh Day Baptists, 9,000; 
Separate Baptists, 5,827; Six Principle Baptists, 1,450; 
Church of God (Winebrennarian) , 29,683; Disciples, 
(Campbellite Baptists), 850,000 ; Mennonites, 93,000 ; Sec- 
ond Advents, 63,500 ; Seventh Day^Advents, 25,543 ; Tun- 
kers, 100,000; Congregationalisms, 475,608; Orthodox 
Friends, 73,000 ; Hicksite Friends, 25,059 ; Lutherans, 
1,099,868; Methodist Episcopal, 2,185,532; M. E. South, 
1,129,102; M. E. African, 405,000; M. E. African Zion, 
314,000; M. E. Colored, 120,000; M. E. Union, 3,500; 
Evangelical Methodist, 145,703; Free Methodist, 12,325 ; 
Independent Methodist, 4,500; Primitive Methodists, 
3,585; Protestant Methodists, 147,503; Wesleyan Metho- 
dists, 16,321: Congregational Methodists, 13,750; Mor- 
avians, 10,966; Swedenborgians, 5,750; Associate Re- 
formed Presbyterians, 7,400; Cumberland Presbyterians, 
160,185 ; Presbvterians North, 748,739 ; Presbyterians 
South, 161,742 -/United Presbyterian, 101,858; Reformed 
Presbvterians, 10,817; Protestant Episcopal, 488.168 
Reformed Episcopal, 9,283; Dutch Reformed, 88,812 
German Reformed, 194,044; Roman Catholic, 8,157,676 
Unitarians, 20,000; United Brethren, 204,517; Univer- 
salists, 38,780. The total of these figures is 20,988,915. 
Taking out the Roman Catholics, it is 12,831,239. 

It is to be remembered that the figures in the M. E. 
bodies include their probationers, a large portion of whom 
never become members in full; while those of the Roman 
Catholics include their entire population. If Baptists 
counted in the same way as the Romanists, they would 
probably number 10,000,000 or more. 

One hundred years ago there were about 60,000 Baptists 
in the United States. Fifty years ago there was a little 



BROCKTON'S PERILS. 135 

over half a million. Twenty years later. I860, they had 
become a million strong. Seventeen years later, in 1877, 
they turned two millions. Twelve years later, 1889, they 
rounded out the third million. The percentage of this 
increase is largely in excess of that of the population, and 
is a constantly increasing ratio. If we add to the Baptists 
the next twelve denominations in the above list, as denom- 
inations that believe in and practice only immersion, and 
then remember that in all the other evangelical denomin- 
ations there are large numbers of individuals that believe 
this is the only true baptism, receiving nothing else for 
themselves, w r e shall readily come to believe that, in this 
nation at least, scriptural baptism is rapidly gaining the 
day over the Romish substituted rites. May God hasten 
the time when all his children shall be so completely loyal 
to Him and His word, that they shall in all things obey 
him in deed and in truth, according to the requirements 
of the gospel. 



ERRATA. 

On page 4, line 6, "Eastern" should be "East." In line 
25, "about" should be omitted. 

On page 9. line 21, "I think" should be omitted, also 
"that" on page 48, line 29. 

On page 64, line 6 from bottom, "Romanism" should 
be "Roman." 

On page 80, line 28, there should b£ a " ?" after the 
word "devil's." 

On page 106, line 8, "who" should be "whom." 






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